[Postponed] Building Community-Engaged Emergency Response Systems in the Context of the Climate Crisis: Insight from Guatemala, with Jeannie Samuel, Benilda Batzin, and Karin Slowing

As part of York University Organized Research Units’ Climate Change Research Month, Dahdaleh faculty fellow Jeannie Samuel, in collaboration with Benilda Batzin and Karin Slowing from Guatemala, will discuss their action research and national data analysis project which explores community-engaged emergency response to extreme weather events in the northern province of Alta Verapaz, Guatemala. 

This is a mountainous, economically poor, and predominantly Indigenous province where storms, floods, and landslides are becoming common occurrences. Their work in this region points to a worrying predicament experienced in some climate-affected areas, where communities may face a dangerous confluence of climate vulnerability, social exclusion, and state neglect that imperils human health. In this talk, they share insights from experiences in Alta Verapaz to shed light on these interconnected problems and how they are being confronted. In particular, the Guatemalan case suggests that technical solutions are important but insufficient responses. Forms of community-led advocacy vis-à-vis the state, as practiced in struggles for health rights, may provide important tools in helping to address the challenges these communities face.

Speaker Profiles

Jeannie Samuel

Jeannie Samuel is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Science’s Health and Society (HESO) program at York University and a faculty member with the Graduate Program in Development Studies. She is currently pursuing an interdisciplinary research agenda focused on the intersection between health justice and the climate crisis, including as investigator on the NFRF/IDRC funded project: “Building equitable and resilient community-engaged emergency response strategies in rural Guatemala.” Prior to her academic track, she spent fifteen years working in Canada and the Global South on equity-related social and environmental issues. She held a permanent staff position with the United Nations World Food Program, with postings in Africa and Latin America, and has also worked extensively in Ontario and BC on numerous health equity and environmental initiatives.  

Benilda Batzin

Benilda Batzin is the Executive Director of a leading Guatemalan health oriented civil society organization, CEGSS – Centro de Estudios para la Equidad y Gobernanza en Sistemas de Salud. She is the is the first Indigenous woman elected to this leadership position and applies her extensive professional expertise to numerous action research and practice related initiatives. She is an investigator on the NFRF/IDRC funded project: “Building equitable and resilient community-engaged emergency response strategies in rural Guatemala.” She holds a Social Work degree from Mariano Gálvez University in Guatemala. She is a recognized leader in Guatemala and internationally on initiatives that promote citizen-led advocacy for the right to health, integrating a focus on women’s rights and gender equality.

Karin Slowing

Karin Slowing is a development analyst with 30 years of experience in public policy and research on health, food and nutritional security, and social protection. She is the co-founder of Laboratorio de Datos GT, a civil society research institute that uses big data analysis to investigate social and health issues. She has been an investigator on the NFRF/IDRC funded project: Building equitable and resilient community-engaged emergency response strategies in rural Guatemala.” From 2008-2012, Dr. Slowing was the Secretary of Planning and Programming of the Presidency in Guatemala, a social policy analyst for Guatemala’s National Human Development Reports program (2000-2005) and General Coordinator of said program (2005-2008). She has been a national and international consultant for several organizations on issues of social policy and public management. Trained as a medical doctor and surgeon, she has also been a professor in the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of San Carlos, Guatemala.

Register below and join us on Wednesday, March 6, at 1 p.m.

RSVP

This event has been postponed.