FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NHERI CONVERGE Reciprocity Training Module Now Available in French
Boulder, CO, Dec. 8, 2023 – The Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) CONVERGE facility, headquartered at the Natural Hazards Center, is excited to announce the release of its first translated module. The Reciprocity in Hazards and Disaster Research is now available in French.
Last year, Karine Lepillez, the former director of Gender Policy and Practice at Navanti Group, contacted the CONVERGE team about their work in French-speaking areas of Africa including Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. Staff and affiliates of Navanti work in various contexts where they strive to operate with cultural sensitivity and to reciprocate in the communities where they collect data.
“I thought the Reciprocity in Hazards and Disaster Research Training Module would be a great resource for my team members,” Lepillez said. “They don’t speak English, so I reached out to CONVERGE to ask if it would be possible to translate this module into French.” After the researchers at CONVERGE enthusiastically responded, Lepillez, a native French speaker, offered her services to help make the translation happen.
The module focuses on the reciprocal relationship between researchers of all disciplines and disaster-affected communities, with an emphasis on providing mutual benefits for researchers and those involved in and affected by hazards and disaster research. The newly translated module, like the others in the series, presents key concepts and case studies using interactive sliders, tables, and call-out boxes. To complete the module, users must pass a 10-question quiz to receive a certificate worth one contact hour of general management training through the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) certification program.
“We hope that this is first of many translated training modules,” said Lori Peek, Director of the Natural Hazards Center and Principal Investigator or CONVERGE. “By expanding our offerings to other languages, we can further our mission of training a diverse next generation of hazards and disaster researchers and practitioners.”
Rachel Adams, research associate at CONVERGE and lead developer of the training modules, agreed. “We encourage native speakers of other languages to contact us if they would be interested in translating our available modules.”
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Acknowledgements
This CONVERGE Training Module is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NSF Award #1841338) with supplemental funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Geological Survey. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF, CDC, or USGS.
About the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure
Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure–NHERI—is a network of experimental facilities dedicated to reducing damage and loss-of-life due to natural hazards such as earthquakes, landslides, windstorms, and tsunamis and storm surge. NHERI provides the natural hazards engineering and social science communities with the state-of-the-art resources needed to meet the research challenges of the 21st century.