Community Emergency Response Teams and disaster volunteerism in Latin America

Matt Lyttle, Patricio Poblete and Liliana Encinas
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Matt Lyttle: Guidehouse, USA
Patricio Poblete: CERT Latin Global, Calle Alcalde Jorge Salas 0173, Chile
Liliana Encinas: LISTOS National Program Director, Fire Services Training Institute and Bilingual Public Outreach Coordinator/Public Information Officer, Santa Barbara, California City Fire Department, USA

Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning, 2023, vol. 16, issue 4, 366-378

Abstract: While it may be more common to think of a disaster volunteer as someone from outside the community who comes to assist during times of need, it is important not to forget those members of the community who are well poised to build grassroots resilience when provided with the necessary training and tools. This paper examines the state of disaster volunteerism in Latin America and Spanish-speaking communities in the USA who have been exposed to the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) programme, with an emphasis on the perceptions of and motivations for grassroots volunteerism from the perspective of both local emergency managers and CERT volunteers. The research team developed an online survey and shared it with active Spanish-speaking emergency management groups throughout the USA, Mexico, Central and South America. Conducted over nine days in October 2022, the survey collected 40 responses from the target demographic. The results show that enthusiasm for disaster volunteerism is high throughout the communities surveyed. Established disaster volunteer training programmes like CERT and LISTOS have already been successfully exported from the USA to Chile, Honduras and Mexico. An international community of emergency managers should consider how else to support grassroots preparedness activities in Latin America to ensure that local communities are empowered to direct their own resilience-building initiatives.

Keywords: disaster volunteerism; Community Emergency Response Teams; Latin America; disaster preparedness; local emergency planning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M1 M10 M12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aza:jbcep0:y:2023:v:16:i:4:p:366-378

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