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GEM and SIATA Medellin were invited to participate in the Disaster Risk Awareness week in the city of Cali, Colombia, which was held from November 21st to the 25th. During these days a series of workshops to promote awareness of disaster risk to the community was organized by the municipality’s Risk Management Office and Office of Urban Planning (Secretaría de Gestión del Riesgo - SGR and Departamento Administrativo de Planeación - DAP). 

GEM’s Catalina Yepes and Alejandro Calderon visited the city to present the main findings of the urban risk assessment for the city, performed within the framework of the TREQ Project. The culmination of TREQ’s work was presented to urban planners, risk management officials, first responders, and community leaders in sessions that specialized in each target group.

SATIC Event

The SATIC (Cali Early Warnings Systems) organized by the SGR, had over 250 individuals in attendance. Most of the attendees were community leaders and the general public that is part of the disaster warning system of the city. The event emphasized the importance of community engagement in the success of SATIC. International speakers complemented the workshop with special presentations, among them Catalina Yepes, who presented the work done in collaboration with the SGR in the past two years regarding the seismic risk for Cali. The event was capped by roundtable dialogues between the community, and the signing of the decree by the Mayor on the generation of the community support group.

OpenQuake Technical Workshop with City Officials

One entire day was dedicated to the transferring of results and capacity from the GEM team to the risk management officials and academics. More than twenty participants joined from Cali’s SGR, DAP, and regional universities. The participants had the opportunity to discuss the seismic scenarios for Cali, how to replicate risk estimates using OpenQuake tools, and train on using the information repository and risk models.

Workshops for the community

The SGR, GEM, and SIATA Medellin organized two capacity-building sessions for risk officials, community leaders and first responders. Around 50 individuals participated in these sessions and shared experiences and the knowledge required to understand and mitigate seismic risk.

The GEM visit to Cali also marked the start of FORCE project’s commitment to keep and improve the training component for technical and non-technical audiences that started in the TREQ project.

Below, some of the highlights from the event in Cali, Colombia shared by SGR on Twitter. More photos are also available from the gallery (above right).