What DRR looks like - more commentary from Guatemala
I must confess it’s been a struggle to keep up with terms like disaster risk reduction (not just RR but DRR?) mitigation, emergency preparedness. So the prospect of seeing an actual DRR pilot project and an example of what the term boiled down to in practice was a thrilling prospect.
First, after more than half a day of travel, Juan Manuel, myself and Ivonne, my interpreter began an arduous ascent by winding dirt road up one of the ever-present mountains. So unforgiving was the road, Juan Manuel’s truck bed whined and groaned on its frame at every rotation of the wheels. Our words came out in woofs and puffs as we jostled around like cargo. Nonetheless, the natural beauty was breathtaking. ECB Sharepoint users, you can see some pics here.
At last, after more than three hours of ascent, descent, and then ascent again through increasing darkness with only the intermittent trace of human existence, we drove up into Senahu, a fully functioning town. I was flabbergasted. I could not even conceive of how a cement truck could make it up the road we had just traveled. It seemed as though the town had been put together down below and then airlifted to its current site.
In the morning, we got together with the head of CARE’s health program and a food security guy, also from CARE and both apparently with vested interest in ECB3. The three gentlemen were kind enough to give me a detailed run-down of the pilot project in Senahu. It has a component which deals with catalyzing community members into some sort of risk reduction group, another component which deals with introducing risk reduction training into school curriculums working with a local youth group, and another which is about adopting some simple mitigation measures.
It was that last component that I got to see as we took a tour of the areas for proposed mitigation activities. In the daytime, it was easy to see that the town sat in a basin, surrounded by sharply sloping mountains. Juan Manuel and co. showed me a little video clip of the last landslide where floods and rocks tumbled into the town, killing 15, wounding others and destroying the church on the hill. ECB3 has already put in a mesh basket at the foot of a huge gulley, and wants to do a few different things like putting in culverts in one area of a mountain, improving drainage and putting up tree barriers. So we dashed around to a few of these sites where I got to ogle at the beautiful scenery while contemplating the fragility of the soil. Even without deforestation, it tends to fall of the slopes in chunks. Even the rocks are so fragile you can actually break them with bare hands.
After this geological escapade, we were off to meet with the assistant mayor to introduce these plans and garner their support. Hands clasped, the assistant mayor managed to keep up an intent look of interest through what was a thorough and long presentation. I personally thought the CARE doctor did a good job of stressing that in order for the project to be sustainable, they would need to work very closely with the municipality. The response back from the assistant mayor was very positive but frank – and so with assurances of collaboration and an admonition to come back and talk to the mayor, we left.
Overall, what I heard from many of the people I spoke to in Guatemala, was that collaboration is working. The IWG country directors met last week and have agreed to continue meeting once a month. They still plan on doing a lessons learned workshop on the multi-agency evaluation process. There have been mixed views about the evaluation itself. Most seem to believe it that though it was botched in many ways, it ended up being a useful tool and a catalyst for collaboration. There was one view that the loosely-defined objectives and the poor quality of the product have made it only marginally useful to that agency.
Will there be an ECB Phase II in Guatemala? It seems very much so, not necessarily because the Phase II design committee recommends that there is, or because the IWG principals think so, but because six IWG agencies in Guatemala seem adamant that collaboration continue.
Malaika
First, after more than half a day of travel, Juan Manuel, myself and Ivonne, my interpreter began an arduous ascent by winding dirt road up one of the ever-present mountains. So unforgiving was the road, Juan Manuel’s truck bed whined and groaned on its frame at every rotation of the wheels. Our words came out in woofs and puffs as we jostled around like cargo. Nonetheless, the natural beauty was breathtaking. ECB Sharepoint users, you can see some pics here.
At last, after more than three hours of ascent, descent, and then ascent again through increasing darkness with only the intermittent trace of human existence, we drove up into Senahu, a fully functioning town. I was flabbergasted. I could not even conceive of how a cement truck could make it up the road we had just traveled. It seemed as though the town had been put together down below and then airlifted to its current site.
In the morning, we got together with the head of CARE’s health program and a food security guy, also from CARE and both apparently with vested interest in ECB3. The three gentlemen were kind enough to give me a detailed run-down of the pilot project in Senahu. It has a component which deals with catalyzing community members into some sort of risk reduction group, another component which deals with introducing risk reduction training into school curriculums working with a local youth group, and another which is about adopting some simple mitigation measures.
It was that last component that I got to see as we took a tour of the areas for proposed mitigation activities. In the daytime, it was easy to see that the town sat in a basin, surrounded by sharply sloping mountains. Juan Manuel and co. showed me a little video clip of the last landslide where floods and rocks tumbled into the town, killing 15, wounding others and destroying the church on the hill. ECB3 has already put in a mesh basket at the foot of a huge gulley, and wants to do a few different things like putting in culverts in one area of a mountain, improving drainage and putting up tree barriers. So we dashed around to a few of these sites where I got to ogle at the beautiful scenery while contemplating the fragility of the soil. Even without deforestation, it tends to fall of the slopes in chunks. Even the rocks are so fragile you can actually break them with bare hands.
After this geological escapade, we were off to meet with the assistant mayor to introduce these plans and garner their support. Hands clasped, the assistant mayor managed to keep up an intent look of interest through what was a thorough and long presentation. I personally thought the CARE doctor did a good job of stressing that in order for the project to be sustainable, they would need to work very closely with the municipality. The response back from the assistant mayor was very positive but frank – and so with assurances of collaboration and an admonition to come back and talk to the mayor, we left.
Overall, what I heard from many of the people I spoke to in Guatemala, was that collaboration is working. The IWG country directors met last week and have agreed to continue meeting once a month. They still plan on doing a lessons learned workshop on the multi-agency evaluation process. There have been mixed views about the evaluation itself. Most seem to believe it that though it was botched in many ways, it ended up being a useful tool and a catalyst for collaboration. There was one view that the loosely-defined objectives and the poor quality of the product have made it only marginally useful to that agency.
Will there be an ECB Phase II in Guatemala? It seems very much so, not necessarily because the Phase II design committee recommends that there is, or because the IWG principals think so, but because six IWG agencies in Guatemala seem adamant that collaboration continue.
Malaika
posted by Emergency Capacity Building Project Team Blog at 1:49 PM
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