Applied Risk Communications by Pacífico

In Mexico, 70% of rivers are polluted with chemicals. Greenpeace Mexico needed to share the results of a scientific study describing this problem.

Our challenge was to draw people’s attention to the problem and spark an environmental debate.

We created the Toxic Tours initiative, with a provocative campaign and a real invitation for people to visit polluted places.

The Topos Rescue Brigade is an independent civil organisation of volunteer rescuers. Since 1985, they travel to earthquakes around the world to save people trapped in collapsed structures.

They are unknown heroes who save hundreds of lives but they do not receive any financial suppport.

After participating in their trainings and learning about the organization challenges, we came up with an idea. Instead of creating a campaign, we created a product. A product for them to give to donors in exchange for a donation. We called it the Earthquake Amulet.

On Saturday August 20th we organised a Risk Lab on Flooding in Santiago de Chile, as part of the Do Smart Cities event.
Among the participants were neighbours from places in the city which suffer recurrent flooding.
It was coordinated by Gabriela Elgueta, the Chief Resilience Officer of Santiago, Víctor Salazar, Innovation director at Aguas Andinas water company and the Pacífico team of engineers.
For the practical activity we organised a drill.
We used sensors, Arduinos and low cost rain gauges to simulate a big storm in the city of Santiago and measure how rain affects neighbourhoods which suffer flooding recurrently.

We projected a city map on the wall showing data coming real time from citizens rain gauges and configured an early warning system.

Government officials and citizens discussed ways in which citizen data can enrich current average data provided by government agencies with more granularity at the neighbourhood level.

Last December we started working with the City of New Orleans. We will develop a communications campaign that connects residents to the coast, targeting young residents and inviting them to support the coastal protection and restoration initiatives. Louisiana’s coast is a precious natural, economic, and cultural resource, but its complex and fragile ecosystem is disappearing at an alarming rate. The Coastal Master Plan sets an ambitious path to respond to the loss of the coastal land and the threats from storm surge events. In line with this plan, the City of New Orleans wants residents to share this commitment. The process started with a field trip and the coordination of a workshop with community stakeholders who will shape the campaign, in which we explored the message territories. The creative message will tell the story of how the past, present and future of New Orleans are shaped by water.

On October 31st we organised a Risk Lab in Buenos Aires, with the participation of more than 60 public officials from argentine national and local governments.

It was sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank. The context was the presentation of the study ‘A perspective on local risk management in Argentina’. Speakers included Dr Omar Darío Cardona, international expert in Risk Management, Sergio Lacambra, Lead Specialist in Disaster Risk Mangement at the IDB and Viviana Alva Hart, specialist in rural development, also the IDB.

On Saturday 27th August we organised a new Risk Lab on seismic risk in the City of Los Angeles, California.

Together with the California Institute of Technology, renowned seismologists Lucy Jones and Jean Paul Ampuero and the organisation Mujeres de la Tierra, we invited the latino community to take part in a full day of activities around seismic risk at the Sonia Sotomayor School of History and Dramatic Arts in Cypress Park.

In collaboration with the Resilient Cities Network (R-Cities), ideation workshops were executed.

More than 130 people from the government, civil society organizations, the private sector and residents participated. More than 500 ideas were proposed to nurture the City’s Resilience Strategy.

How can Easter Island—Rapa Nui—become more resilient with regards to tsunamis? Is there a connection between tsunamis, wildfires and coastal erosion on the island?

Together with the Provincial Government of Easter Island, the Chilean emergency agency ONEMI, Chile’s National Forest Corporation (Spanish acronym CONAF) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), Pacífico has addressed risk management on Easter Island-Rapa Nui launching an awareness campaign

This was carried out using mechanisms such as participatory design, art and illustration, ancestral knowledge, documentary narrative, and systems thinking tools.

Risk from tsunamis, rising sea levels and coastal erosion endanger this heritage, located mostly along the coast. Ever more frequent wildfires destroy vegetation and accelerate coastal erosion, affecting the archaeological heritage, on which tourism depends.

Every year, hurricane season brings great destruction to Haiti.

According to a study by the World Bank, messages about prevention often fail to reach the people who most need them.

This is why we launched a campaign with a positive preparation message designed to reach the entire country through different platforms.

With popular Haitian artists Boukman Experyans, Tafa Mi Soleil and other musicians, we created a prevention song.

How can meteorology be made more attractive and open to everyone? This challenge has brought us to work together with the Hydrometeorological Service of Haiti (Haitian UHM).

As part of a presentation workshop, we created “Young Meteorologists.” This is an educational activity with special guests like Nicole F. Celhomme, a member of the National Meteorology Center (CNM), to help children get to know the UHM and encourage them to become its ambassadors.

In a country as affected by disasters as is Haiti, capacities for weather prediction are fundamental for reducing the vulnerability of the population. With the support of the World Bank, Pacífico has partnered with the nation’s Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development (MARNDR) in order to institutionally strengthen the UHM as an organ for providing important information in order to better prepare the population.

“Music and Climate Change” was the topic chosen for the closing of the tenth annual “Understanding Risk 2020,” the main event for the global community working in risk-management and communication.

With the support of the World Bank, we at Pacífico presented this closing event, with a short video hat explores the various ways of creating resilience through music and science.

“Creating Change Through Music” is an encounter between two talented artists from two different cultures and generations, who perform music in order to raise awareness of natural phenomena, climate change and disasters.

Although they live in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the majority of children on Ecuador’s Galápagos Islands have no access to the sea, nor have they had the opportunity to visit the other islands of the archipelago.

At Pacífico, with the support of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), we have developed an initiative of social and digital inclusion, along with the Governing Council of Galápagos, the Galápagos Special Regime and the Naveducando Foundation.

Galápagos Infinito is an experiential-education program aimed at students in the archipelago. The goal is for the 12-year-old boys and girls of Galápagos to have educational experiences that bring them closer to the sea, help them value their surroundings, and connect with the other islands in Galápagos and elsewhere in the Pacific.

The Caribbean and Central America of two of the world’s most vulnerable and disaster-prone regions. They are confronted with an increasing number of devastating storms and extreme weather events.

Disaster Fighters is a regional communications platform to improve disaster preparedness and build resilience in 29 countries.

The project is supported by the World Bank, CDEMA and CEPREDENAC.

People around the world want action to prevent the impending crisis from the changing climate, but are struggling to understand how to make a difference.

Tempo proposes a collaboration between
artists and scientists to promote climate action, communicate viable solutions, and better understand the risks we face from climate change.

Moving stories of resilience and citizen participation have the potential to spread important preparedness information and to inspire the next generation of community leaders.

"The girl and the tsunami" is a short animated film about the story of Martinna and the community of Juan Fernández in Chile who on the night of February 27, 2010 survived a tsunami.

Triggered by one of the biggest earthquakes in history, the tsunami affected thousands of kilometers along the Chilean coast, as well as the small Pacific island of Juan Fernandez, also known as Robinson Crusoe.

Most of the community on the island was already sleeping that summer night, unaware of the up-coming hazard. But it was a 12 year old girl, realizing that a tsunami would hit its coast, that ran to the firemen's office and rang the gong to wake up and protect her community.

This film celebrates the courage of a young girl who took the lead to save many lives.

Resilience and the telling of stories are closely related. The narration of stories is a powerful tool for sharing experiences and information valuable to people, allowing us to connect with empathy in a universal way.

Tsunami Ladies is a documentary about six women connected by the ocean, across thousands of kilometers.

Six Chilean and Japanese cooks, who survived the tsunamis of 2010 and 2011 to lead the reconstruction of their towns, meet in Japan to tell their stories and share recipes.

Tsunami Ladies is a celebration of cooking as a universal language.