Summary
There was a need to assess the seismic vulnerability of schools in the province of San Cristóbal and to train members of risk management teams in seismic issues, for which each of 365 schools were visually evaluated in the province and teachers and members of the risk management teams were trained; this project was financed by the Japan Cooperation Agency (JICA) and ONESVIE; also the National Geological Survey (SGN, in Spanish) and MINERD participated in the project, which lasted about 7 months, ending in March 2014.
Process
The community participated in this project through the conferences and talks given in all the municipalities of the province, which were a total of 10, for a total of 315 trained people, who would be in charge of replicating the acquired knowledge. All this was done together with the local authorities, both from the government and MINERD, who coordinated with ONESVIE and SGN for the implementation of the activities.
This project covered all the communities in the province, from the most central to the most rural, to whom training was given and leaflets on the subject were distributed. Both men and women participated in the workshops and would be responsible for replicating their knowledge to other sectors of society, especially children, the elderly and people with disabilities.
This project, by providing information on the degree of vulnerability and seismic risk to the education sector, provides information at the time of these variables, which can be monitored over time as actions are taken to mitigate risk, and serves as a basis for knowing how much progress has been made in this regard.
Impact
This project aimed to provide a detailed assessment of schools with a high degree of vulnerability to gather information that could then be used to mitigate the vulnerability of these schools. In this project local material resources were not used, only available human resources.
From the lectures and talks given, a greater awareness of seismic issues was created, as a result of having more knowledge about earthquakes and how to combat their harmful effects, these cognitive tools contribute to increasing the resilience of the communities where the trained people live.
Other
In order to achieve sustainability, financial, technical and scientific resources are needed, as well as coordination between the different entities that make up the National Prevention and Mitigation System.