Summary
The CBDRM initiative involved the entire school community in the metropolitan area and thus reduced their vulnerability and loss of lives resulting from earthquake catastrophes in Santiago de Chile. The activities included identifying, practicing and determining risk areas in each assessed school, along with training in the use of fire extinguishers and basic first aid. The actors involved were teachers, teaching assistants, students, representatives and the community from the 10 communes of Santiago that were chosen for the educational centres project. The financing was provided by a private entity, using a benefit known as “Corporate Social Responsibility”. The project lasted 8 months.
Process
The education institutions already have Emergency Plans, but due to the lack of a professional to guide them with technical issues in the processes they are not carried out, and when they are it is in a precarious manner where much information is still pending to be delivered to the educational community. The knowledge used by the chosen entities are those that provide the necessary information for the professionals to draw up the technical report on the deficiencies of the education centres.
It should be borne in mind that all the schools that worked on the project were municipal schools, where the directors contributed, authorising the access to each education centre. The coordination was done directly with the director of each school.
The project was carried out by an expert company in emergency plans with professional staff in risk prevention.
The inclusion was due to the lack of application of the non-existent emergency plans protocols in the municipal schools of the metropolitan area.
The project involved all the members of the community, as well as the community adjacent to the study centres, which provide support in the event of a disaster. The training also involved people with reduced mobility, who must be supported by higher education courses, so that everyone works safely in the event of a disaster.
Activities were carried out according to the context of vulnerability to which the project was directed. There were meetings with managers to initiate a process of risk identification in each education centre. Technical reports identified the problems in each work place, Training guidance was identified as a shortcoming and drills were conducted to evaluate and measure the response times in the event of an emergency. A final assessment of the project was delivered to the director of each particular centre.
All these tools and measurement elements were given to the emergency monitors who were identified in each study centre, who must repeat them until it become a habit.
Impact
The processes delivered are repeated at least 4 times a year, except for earthquake drills that were practiced once every two months.
Influence in the community is valued because there is nowhere else, no safe area where students feel the safest when an incident or earthquake occurs, other than with their peers and teachers, who are a reference point for education. Being in a state of emergency, there are no social classes or people with reduced mobility; they are all peers and should support each other in an emergency.