My Nonprofit Reviews

I guess I could consider myself a client of GHI, although I was part of the starting proyect that gave birth to GHI back in the early 90's: The Quito, Ecuador, Earthquake Risk Management Project. I am the co-founder of the Geophysical Institute in Quito. In that condition, I felt as part of a very small team pursuing a dream: to raise earthquake risk awareness in a city where risk is really high and obvious but nobody apparently cared about it at the time. We succeded; a lot of technical and scientific expertise was put together all around the world and came to to help Quito ansewer a complicated question in a simple maner: What would be the outcome of a strong but credible earthquake in Quito if we let the city shake in a computer? So we figured out the earthquakes, entered the city in a computer and let it rock. Results changed local politicians and bussinesmen's minds due to the fact that we were capable of convening local leaders, communicating the risk the way they could understand it and delivering some simple ideas that could be adopted by them to change the situation. The City Mayor appointed for the first time a public officer to deal with earthquakes preparedness, not response; the bankers association strat publishing a newsletter on the topic that was also distributed to the insurance sector; the media realized that this issue was worth paying attention..... Several projects followed the Quito Risk one, both locally and internationally. I lost close contacts with GHI since then but I feel happy to learn that GHI is standing and alive and that some of us who started the dream are still helping people to cope with risk all around the seismic globe.

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