Building resilience with communities of Guerrero

Introduction

The increase of resilience at the Guerrero communities has brought results due the improvement in the constructive, productive and environmental scopes. The communities have strengthened their capacities which have enabled them to resist threats such as hurricanes and earthquakes that 8 years ago damaged their houses and their crops. Thanks to the strengthening of the community ties, acquisition of knowledge on risk management, environmental restoration and the recovery of the traditional constructive techniques, the communities nowadays can face these threats with better capabilities and self manage a habitat more adapted to their needs, culture and environment. 

Self Production of 18 reinforced adobe households against earthquakes and strong winds

This trimester, Hurricane Dolores and a 7.1 magnitude earthquake, tested the self management and resilience of Ojo de Agua and La Soledad communities. This natural phenomenon is a constant threat for the Mountain Region of Guerrero communities, therefore, we have reinforced the traditional constructive systems of adobe training the different populations to build resistant houses against these threats, reducing the vulnerability.

The reinforced constructive system of adobe proposed by Cooperación Comunitaria and implemented in 18 households of Ojo de Agua and La Soledad, have proven its reliability since they didn't suffer any damage after the earthquake, unlike the traditional houses that are not reinforced.

Hurricane Dolores triggered hard rains and landslides which slowed down some of the collective work. Thanks to the organization process based on mutual support, the constructive activities gradually reactivated, reaching significant progress in the self-production of their houses. We share with you some photos of the process.

Self production of  community kitchen and wood saving stove at Obispo primary school

The scholar community of the Obispo primary school has agreed to self build a kitchen where students can learn about traditional cooking and the community can use the space for traditional festivities.

The reproduction of their comunitary traditions and ancestral knowledge strengthen Me’phaá`s indiginous culture by constructing identity that generates a sense of belonging and reinforces social and territory ties.

This kitchen was designed, planeded and self constructed by the scholar community with the technical advisors of Cooperacion Comunitaria’s team and its planned to be ready to use in the next few months.

Collective evaluation and furniture design for the Kitchen- Dinner of the Intercultural Primary School of Xochistlahuaca

We organized an evaluation activity with the scholar community of the Intercultural School  W´aa Yocanch'u Ncue that self constructed the kitchen-dinner. Through this process the school community  recovered the knowledge related to  the adobe traditional constructive system.

As part of the activity, teachers made a metaphor about the kitchen as a living thing in which the feet represent the structure, skin represent the adobe walls, windows represent the lung and the heart is the community that selfbuilt with love this kitchen-dinner.

The school parents and teachers designed through a participatory process and self managed the furniture for the kitchen-dinner, which responded to the school’s community needs.

This process has increased the self management capabilities of the community and has strengthened the primary school project that recovers native indiginuos language and promotes the rescue of traditional wisdom.

Restoration of traditional Me’phaà Houses

In Moyotepec, we restored 4 households with historic value for the community. After a long break of activities due to the increase of covid 19 cases,we gradually reactivated works in the field thanks to the prevention actions and sensibilization measures to avoid covid infections that we have implemented.These constructions of almost 100 years, promote the conservation of the Me’phaàs traditional building culture and remind us that adobe constructions can withstand through time with the adequate maintenance.

Planning and designing of the nursery garden with the Intercultural University of Guerrero

After the Aula Ambiental adobe building process and the participation of the Intercultural University of Guerrero students, we started the environmental restoration process, which aims to regenerate  the regional ecosystem.

For this goal, we planned with the University authorities and students the construction of a tree nursery  in which regional seeds will be planted to get the woods that the communities use for building and for cooking

THANK YOU FOR BEING PART OF THIS PROJECT!!!