18-10-2016 | di COOPI

A new partner in Guatemala: Fondation Artelia

COOPI is happy to announce a new partnership in the project "Reducing Disaster Risk in communities exposed to multi-hazards in Guatemala" with the Fondation Artelia, the Corporate Foundation of the international multi-specialist engineering firm based in France (http://fondationartelia.org).

The area of the project involves the municipalities of El Quetzal and San Antonio Sacatepéquez, in San Marcos Department, where the communities have been affected by the 2012 earthquake and are still exposed to multi hazards, mainly earthquakes and landslides. The project will contribute to reduce disaster risk through a multi-hazards approach and with a specific gender strategy: it will promote inclusion of specific groups such as women, children and disable people.

The collaboration with Fondation Artelia will have two main components:

• Financial assistance, with a grant already spent for improving the Response equipment for communities and schools. This intervention has already provided first aid kits, shelter kits, rescue kits, emotional support kits to 34 vulnerable primary schools in the Department of San Marcos.
• Technical assistance in the form of a mission of 3 Artelia employees to Guatemala in early 2017 to carry out practical activities like Community Risk assessment, Risk maps, community and municipal response plans, simulations and drills.

"We are happy to invest in this new partnership with Fondation Artelia" - said Ennio Miccoli, Director of COOPI. "We're looking with lot of interest to the new perspectives and experiences coming from the Philantrophic Sector, especially from Corporate Foundations like Artelia. Considering the complexity of the challenges that the International Community has to face, adopting a multistakeholder approach would be crucial".