Centering Communities in Preparing for an Uncertain Future
Since 2017, Ventura County has been at the epicenter of some of the biggest fires in California’s history, with vulnerable communities bearing disproportionate impacts. In particular, for more than 50,000 agricultural and outdoor workers supporting some of the state’s most productive lands, these wildfires created some of the harshest conditions that the region has seen in recent decades. These workers, many of whom are immigrants from Mexico, are the backbone of the region’s economy and essential to the food system.
Emerging from these events, the County realized there was an opportunity to strengthen its approach in advance of the next disaster. In 2019, taking the lessons learned from the Thomas and Woolsey fires, the County, in collaboration with community-based organizations, launched the Farmworker Resource Program (FRP), a test case for a collaborative approach–one that prioritizes communication, information, and relationship building. FRP helps to disseminate services to those who need them the most. This initiative aims to enable communities to access the support they need using data to facilitate a people centred disaster response, leaving no one behind.
This new model would soon be put to the test as the Covid-19 pandemic posed enormous economic and health challenges for workers and their families. FRP proved to be a critical tool in ensuring effective, efficient, and widespread distribution of essential resources to vulnerable communities during this crisis. It has been able to mobilize quickly by building on grassroots relationships, getting information and essentials out to the community, launching mobile vaccination sites, and using multilingual WhatsApp groups to send messages in real time. This integrated data-driven approach is strengthening partnerships with communities and contributing to the sustainability and long-term resilience of the agricultural sector, and can serve as a model for other municipalities.
As Ventura County prepares for whatever challenge lies ahead, it will continue to reflect and incorporate lessons learned in supporting communities.
ABOUT
Video Production Team:
Eric Arthur Fernandez of Raffia Pictures (DP/Director) is an Emmy award-winning cinematographer and filmmaker who specializes in documentary and non-fiction films and television. He has worked on a wide variety of projects for the New York Times, PBS, VICE News Tonight on HBO, Hulu, The Guardian, National Geographic, Netflix and others.
Nick Curran (Editor) is a filmmaker and editor who focuses largely on local politics, communities, activism and social justice. His shooting and editing work for documentary and reporting has appeared on the New York Times, Teen Vogue, The Intercept, Topic, Means TV and PBS.
Loroto Productions (Post-production services) is a production company which excels at documentaries, music videos, branded content, event coverage, internal post-production, e-commerce and everything in between.
Resilient Cities Catalyst (RCC) drives catalytic change to help regions, cities, and partners solve their most pressing challenges. RCC works towards a vision where cities ensure that all residents, in particular, the most vulnerable, are safer, healthier and thriving in the face of everyday stresses, and are able to withstand and recover quickly after shocks.
RCC’s flagship resilience program, the California Resilience Partnership (CRP), is a statewide, multimillion-dollar public-philanthropic effort in coordination with a diverse set of organizations and stakeholders, along with participation by representatives of California State agencies, that is developing new partnerships to advance high-impact projects that tackle California’s complex resilience challenges in regions across the state.
The Resilience Shift’s (TRS) mission is to be the global hub for resilience best practice, accelerating critical infrastructure resilience across engineering and business sectors. It aims to influence policy makers and practitioners and empower them to shift their behaviours and implement innovative approaches to the commissioning, design and operation of infrastructure. It is part of a wider network of partners that are focused on the critical need to build resilience globally across all communities.