SEASON 1: EPISODE 9 TRANSCRIPT

United by Resilience

Nahuel Arenas García: Do what you're passionate about. Just focus on what you're passionate about and then you can take that and try to make the world a better place. With that, you can really make change. I think that it's important that we do what we do with passion and with thinking that we have one planet, we are one community, and we have to take care of each other.

Dr. Greg Jones: Our world is facing significant challenges, and at every turn, another conflict seems to await, yet we survive, we overcome, we even thrive by relying on an intangible and undeniable gift: hope. It fills us, connects us, highlights our individual purpose, and unites us in the goal to do more together. Hope fuels us toward flourishing as people and as a community. My name is Greg Jones, President of Belmont University, and I'm honored to be your guide through candid conversations with people who demonstrate what it really means to live with hope and lean into the lessons they've picked up along their journey. They are The Hope People.

Today's agent of hope is Nahuel Arenas García, Chief of the United Nations Regional Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. Nahuel has dedicated his life to helping communities reduce risk and build resilience in the face of disasters. As you'll hear from our interview, Nahuel highlights the importance of finding hope in the face of overwhelming suffering, all the while remaining focused on the end goal to leave this planet and future generations in a place where they and we can thrive. I'd love to have you start by talking about your story and how you first got interested in helping with risk reduction.

Nahuel Arenas García: Well, it's a long journey and not a straight line, but I studied psychology and I was interested in community psychology because I started volunteering in slums. This is in Buenos Aires in the late '90s.

Dr. Greg Jones: Which is your home country?

Nahuel Arenas García: That's my home country, yes. I grew up in Buenos Aires, although I was born in Patagonia. And so it was my girlfriend that invited me to join a project she was volunteering in. I joined that project working with children at social risk in a very violent environment, and I saw with my eyes change in children's life. Change. I could see change with my eyes in one year and I continued doing that, working with NGOs. In 2001, there was a big economic social crisis in Argentina, working with impoverished communities, and after that I had my good share of humanitarian work in Africa. About 5 years in different countries. I went to Mozambique to manage a post-disaster recovery program, but then another cycle of disasters came, and so I was involved in the disaster response. So I did a lot of disaster response, disaster recovery, and that's how I eventually got involved with the UN in disaster risk reduction.

Dr. Greg Jones: It's a fascinating story. It seems a long way from initial studies in psychology to dealing with disasters and disaster risk reduction and large-scale communities and social dynamics. How has your experience in studying psychology helped you with thinking about risk reduction and even resilience?

Nahuel Arenas García: Well, I think it's about empathy, developing empathy, listening and be able to put yourself in other people's shoes, trying to understand the needs, the root causes. Because disaster risk reduction, really, it's more about, I would say, vulnerabilities than it is about hazards, and that's where I think I see a huge confluence with the empathy and understanding the circumstances through which different human beings have to go through.

Dr. Greg Jones: You encounter a lot of suffering in your work, both because of the immediate aftermath of a disaster and just the conditions that people live in. You mentioned working in the slums of Buenos Aires. What sustains you or inspires you to enable you to keep working at it when you're faced with sometimes what must feel like overwhelming suffering?

Nahuel Arenas García: I remember one of the stories that most hit me were talking to refugees that were fleeing from ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and their stories were of unimaginable sorrow and sadness and also lots of bad things with no sense at all. But I also see a lot of change, positive change. I see the power of hope, the power of solidarity in people, I've seen a lot of local leaders promoting change, I've seen local communities thriving because of their own resilience, so I'm convinced that this is the path and that eventually we'll thrive.

Dr. Greg Jones: That's beautiful. You mentioned hope. Is there a story where you discovered hope in a surprising place in your work?

Nahuel Arenas García: I think in terms of disaster risk reduction, it's difficult because you are convincing people to do things so that something could happen does not happen. It's quite abstract, but at the bottom line, you're trying to create a culture of prevention and your question reminds me, two days ago, my youngest daughter, she's 7, brought to me her homework. She was showing things that they were doing in school and she had produced a booklet on disasters, and not because of me, she is not very conscious of what I do, not in depth, but it was part of the curricula, right?

So I saw that. I was surprised to see how, at a very young age, 7 years old in a country, I live in Panama now, where it's not the most hit by disaster, but there is this conscious of the things that are going on in the world and how we need to create a cultural prevention from that very young age. So that, for me, is hope. Is hope in the next generations, is hope in children that are growing up in a very complex world, but I'm hopeful that they will have the tools to make this world a better place.

Dr. Greg Jones: That's beautiful. And you talk about resilience, which is often linked to hope in that sense of being able to rise up in the midst of struggle or disaster and how important that is for a whole community to develop that sense of resilience. How do you try to cultivate that sense of resilience as a part of the work of UNDRR?

Nahuel Arenas García: Well, resilience, we have to make it concrete, and this is a challenge. Making it concrete, it means that when you recover from a disaster, you do not go back to the same vulnerabilities and the same conditions that exposed you to that risk. You are coming out of it stronger. There are many factors that can make a community stronger, but definitely solidarity, a sense of togetherness, but also other aspects that are very concrete. Having the tools, having the preparedness plans, having the culture of prevention, having the evacuation route, having the shelters, having the funding that is available to respond and to put together a solid recovery plan. So the governance aspects, the financial aspects, having the knowledge to understand risk and how to manage.

Dr. Greg Jones: Wow. I want to ask something personal for you. Your work, you're based in Panama, but you've got a pretty broad geography that keeps you on the road a lot. You have two young daughters. It's got to be, at times, lonely, and there has to be times where you just feel emotionally and mentally drained. How do you sustain hope and a feeling of connection amidst the magnitude and scope of your work?

Nahuel Arenas García: On a personal level, try to keep balance. I feel that it is my drive to work for the common good, but at the same time, we also need to have clarity on boundaries and understand that even if we do this and we are passionate about this and we want to make a mark on the world and contribute to a better world that we still need to work to live and not live to work. I travel a lot, so that that's 100% dedicated to work. So when I'm in Panama, I try to limit my working hours, I try to keep an active social life. I play music, by the way.

Dr. Greg Jones: Beautiful. What kind of music?

Nahuel Arenas García: I'm a guitar player. So actually, when I studied psychology, in parallel I was studying music, so I was doing two careers at the same time, but I could sustain that only for two years.

Dr. Greg Jones: You're sounding like a Belmont student. Whatever the vocation our students are doing, they're carrying around guitars and other musical instruments.

Nahuel Arenas García: Well, music, it's a huge part of my wellbeing and my work-life balance.

Dr. Greg Jones: Music has a healing and renewing ability.

Nahuel Arenas García: Totally.

Dr. Greg Jones: I want to turn to a broader question. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction emphasizes the importance of inclusivity and not leaving anyone behind. In your work, how do you work to be sure that vulnerable communities that often are kind of lost, particularly when a disaster happens, are foremost in people's minds and to really be that inclusive in your work?

Nahuel Arenas García: That's a very, very important question and a very central part of what we do. Let me give you an example. People living with disabilities, around 10-15% of the population that lives with some sort of disabilities, but the mortality rates in that segment of the population is two to four times higher.

Dr. Greg Jones: Wow.

Nahuel Arenas García: So vulnerable populations and different vulnerable groups are disproportionately affected by disasters, so we have to look at the specific needs of these different groups to make sure that we leave no one behind. That means that we work on specific policies, sectoral policies, but we also have, I would say, the privilege to work with many networks of specific groups that are totally engaged with the implementation of the Sendai Framework. Developing tools, raising awareness not only to the general public, but raising awareness amongst decision makers, changing policies at the public level.

This year with many partners including the paramedic and health or organization or the WHO chapter of the Americas, a network of indigenous peoples and disaster risk reduction was created in May that's very active. We co-created, with other partners, 2 years ago a network of women in DRR and this network in only I would say a year and a half, less than 2 years, has grown to have more than a thousand leaders, women leaders that are very actively working in disaster risk reduction and the special needs of women in disaster. So we need to keep raising awareness. We need to keep working to change policies to make sure that these specific needs were considered.

Dr. Greg Jones: That's powerful. That's powerful. Disaster risk reduction and fostering resilience seems to be one of the central complex problems, because you can't solve it by just working on one area or one issue. How have you worked to foster that kind of bringing together people to work on the complexity of the problem rather than just treating it as a hard problem?

Nahuel Arenas García: I think the first misconception that we need to clear is, what is risk? Risk is the confluence of a hazard with the vulnerability and an exposure. So let's say you have a landslide in the middle of a forest or in the middle of the Amazon, but there's no population living there. It's not a disaster, right? It's just a natural event. That hazard could be of natural origin, could be of biological origin, could be manmade. But when you have a population that has low access to healthcare or to transportation or to supplies, they're living in the margins of the river or under that slope, that's when you create the formula of the disaster. You have the hazard, but you have a population that is exposed and very vulnerable.

So going back to your questions, I think that, first, we have the capacity to reduce risk by especially addressing vulnerability and exposure, because vulnerability and exposure are our decisions. Yes, climate change has exacerbated the frequency, the intensity of hazards, but when it comes to how exposed people are or how vulnerable people are, these are our decisions. So we can definitely make a change, and in a short term. Period. Climate issues, more about mitigation, also adaptation, but mitigation to really solve that problem.

The second misconception is that complex issues require a lots of sophistication and expensive solutions, and that's not the case. Let me give you an example. Last year we launched a hackathon, it was directed to youth to identify simple solutions on early warning systems by the youth. This grew an amazing dimension all across the region. We had teams competing, and many of these solutions, they're simply solutions, community solutions. So I think some of these complex questions need to be addressed by identifying sometimes simple solutions, sometimes it's about putting people to talk to each other, sometimes it's about articulation, and sometimes it's about sectors talking to each other. We cannot solve systemic problems by working in silos. We need to bring different disciplines around the table to promote systems thinking.

Dr. Greg Jones: That's great. We love hackathons at Belmont and are nurturing them for our young people because they do inspire hope and often find creative solutions that aren't expensive.

Nahuel Arenas García: Exactly.

Dr. Greg Jones: And they often are common sense when you discover the breakthrough. How has technology changed your work over the last couple of decades?

Nahuel Arenas García: A lot in that sense. I think that the amount of information that we have, which is a double-edged sword, because you have to have the criteria to understand what is real, what is fake, but having the information, having access to the data, having access to knowledge. I think that's mostly how it has changed. And then we need to make sense of all of that. I think that's where the effort has to be put behind.

Dr. Greg Jones: I want to talk to you about education, both how you educate communities about risk reduction and resilience, and also the broader question of how we might educate young people better about these issues.

Nahuel Arenas García: At any point we put on the news, we see disasters everywhere happening all the time. Libya was a few weeks ago, Morocco, I was in Brazil last week and there were this summer three cyclones in Southern Brazil. Totally unexpected. Fires, Hawaii, Florida. So they are well aware of the world in which they will have to develop. I think we need to share with them that they can make this world a better place. They have solutions that they can bring about from whichever discipline. You can be a driver of positive change. I think that's the idea.

We see a lot of demand from the youth to understand how they can get engaged in climate issues, in disaster risk reduction. There's a lot of demand. And again, coming to the point that this is an opportunity to work in a multidisciplinary way, and I think that's exciting. Before you got into one career and you kind of were into that harness, now I think also educational institutions are providing the opportunity to engage across different dimensions, disciplines, sectors. Because that's the world we are living in, and so we have to create those opportunities for transdisciplinary work. And then ground experience. Working in communities, engage with your community. You don't need to go to Africa or to the Philippines or to Haiti to be an agent of change. You have to do that in your community first.

Dr. Greg Jones: I love that and I love the way you describe those intersections and collaboration. One of the things I love at Belmont is our students, like you, they're musicians and they're also interested in sciences and they're interested in health and they're interested in community, and bringing that together and helping facilitate that is so important if we're actually going to find creative solutions. What worries you the most as you think about your work and the impact you're trying to achieve? What keeps you up at night?

Nahuel Arenas García: Well, now I'm worried that we're yet another war, that there are segments of populations that still think that violence could be a solution to anything. And that takes us back many steps in very concrete ways. Now money is going to guns in one side or the other, money is going to unnecessary reconstruction. There's a mental and emotional toll for generations. For generations. So news goes very fast and we think these things are very episodic, but the toll, the mental toll, the emotional toll in families, any disaster, any conflict is for generations. Plus the physical toll of all the destruction.

Some of these hurricanes, take hurricanes in the Caribbean, that cost these small island state sometimes two times their GDP, and most of the developing world is already indebted. This is money that is not going to hospitals or to roads, it's just going to repaying what has been lost.

So that's worries me when we take this step back, because we need to be united looking forward. We don't have to lose hope because we see how things move forward. There are a lot of advances in my time at the UN, 6 years, I can tell you. 6 years ago, disaster risk reduction was mostly a thing about civil protection, about response. Now you discuss with ministers of finance, ministers of planning, ministers of cities, ministers of health ministers. So there is a change, there is a conceptual change, but the conceptual change is also changing in practice. So if I can see change in 6 years, I am hoping that in the next 6 years there's going to be way more change than I've seen in the last 6 months.

Dr. Greg Jones: That's great. We're thrilled to be hosting the Tech for DRR conference in partnership with you and other organizations. We're grateful for your coming to Belmont for this gathering. Bringing public and private sector together as well as education, why is it important to work across sectors in that way on issues like this?

Nahuel Arenas García: Because we depend on each other. Not one sector can go at it alone on this. This has to be whole of society approach. We need to find whole of society solutions. This involves not only public, private sector, or educational institutions or the science, we need to find solutions at different levels, the local level, the city level, the national level, the global level across disciplines, and it has to be at the policy level, but also at home. So this is why it's important to come together and to learn from each other and to see how we can promote collaborations, join forces for solutions, spark creativity and innovation, and also learn from each other.

Dr. Greg Jones: That's inspiring and hopeful. I want to conclude with a question about two different groups of people. One, someone just starting university, and the other, someone like your daughter who's younger and just beginning to imagine what kind of impact she could have or a boy could have in the world. What advice do you have for an 18-year-old or a 7-year-old about the impact they can achieve on important issues such as disaster risk reduction?

Nahuel Arenas García: I'm approached by young students very frequently about how they can tweak their career, their studies so that they can get involved in this. My response, it's usually, "Do what you're passionate about, just focus on what you're passionate about, and then you can take that and try to make the world a better place with that. Be it that you are a musician and you can spread a positive word and be a positive agent of change." As a musician, you can do that and it's very, very powerful. Very powerful. You can really make change. I think that it's important that we do what we do with passion and with thinking that we have one planet, we are one community, and we have to take care of each other.

Dr. Greg Jones: Thank you for participating in this conversation with The Hope People. Our aim is to inspire you to become an agent of hope yourself, and to help us cultivate a sense of wellbeing for all. To join our mission and learn more about this show, visit thehopepeoplepodcast.com. If you enjoyed this conversation, remember to rate and review wherever you get your audio content.