Hazard and Climate Resilience Institute hosts community workshop

The Hazard and Climate Resilience Institute kicked off their recent Regards to Rural Conference with a workshop: "Building Resilience and Vitality in Your Community." The session attracted roughly 100 attendees and set a lively, engaging tone for the remainder of the two-day conference.

The workshop emerged from work already underway in the Vertically Integrated Project (VIP) Building Resilient Communities, The course is led by Hazard and Climate Resilience Institute Director Brittany Brand and Research Associate Kyle Peterson.

During the workshop, student in the course, Prithila Purkayastha, Mike Maxfield, Alex Iturriria, Ismaeel Mujahid and Jake Peckenpaugh, acted as small-group facilitators, guiding participants through discussions and activities designed to promote rural resilience and development.

Past semesters of the VIP course resulted in the Kamiah Resilience Assessment. This assessment was built with tools designed for cities and urban areas, so the Spring 2024 team focussed on customizing the materials specifically with rural communities in mind.

"Our priority for this workshop was audience interaction and engagement," Peterson said. "We used Mentimeter to allow real time question responses and actively demonstrated a few assessment tools for participants to keep and use with their home communities. After a long semester of work, it was really encouraging to hear such positive feedback throughout the rest of the conference."

Some of the tools created by the Hazard and Climate Resilience Institute team include the Characteristics of Resilient Communities, Challenge and Solution Trees and an Action Planning Template. Brand hopes the institute can scale up its resilience assessment efforts in the future, but in the meantime, these tools can aid communities in starting on their own path to resilience.

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