The meetings of disaster victims as a space for developing community resilience

• Autor(a) principal: Carvalho, Ricardo José Matos de
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Outros Autores: Silva, Jane Ciambele Souza da, Pimenta, Alícia Fernada da Silva, Carvalho, Paulo Victor Rodrigues de
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFRN
• Texto Completo: https://repositorio.ufrn.br/handle/123456789/45236
• topic: Disasters; Meetings; Participation; Community ergonomics; Community resilience

The objective of this study is to analyze how the collective meetings held inMãeLuiza community have helped in increasing community resilience after a disaster. This is a case study related to the disaster in MãeLuizacommunity due to the heavy rains that hit the city of Natal in June 2014. The disaster was a landslide that culminated in a huge crater affectingaround200 families. The method was based on the community ergonomics framework. The meetings realized by community members after the disaster were followed and mediated by ergonomists to understand how the community deal with disaster management issues. It was found that the meetings become an important space for the disaster victims helping then for different purposes, such as:to get information about the real situation that they were; in clarify conflicting information; obtain guidance; identify and organize their real demands; discuss and decide on the strategies to be adopted; bring government officials and technicians to the community to clarify, discuss and resolve their; involve community leaders; schedule a public hearing in the municipal parliament; be represented in front of authorities and the media; establish alliances with sectors of society; experience the collective participation, reflect and learn from their own experiences, and; monitor the decisions and actions taken by the authorities. We conclude from these results that the involvement and participation of the residents affected by the disaster in the meetings, following the decisions that needed to be taken in response to the disaster contributes to increasing the community resilience, as well as contribute to the development skills and to improve the interaction among individuals from the community