Three departments in Guatemala were brutally struck by the Fire Volcano with thousands of people in need evacuated, assisted, sheltered, with raising missing and death tolls. Early warning systems and public resource mobilization resulted in poorly effective evacuation strategies; entire villages succumbed under the eruption. The capital and nearby touristic spots were affected by ash and dust rain – creating health problems and aggravating the state of cities infrastructure.

In the face of this disaster, Global Shapers Guatemala City Hub centralized all scattered information about emergency response, individually and collectively, in acting upon a volcano eruption at home or any location, listing shelters and products to be delivered and collected, and opening in partnership two fundraising platforms to support affected Guatemalans on Global Giving (Facebook) and GoFundMe (www.gofundme.com/guatevolcano2018), among others which raised an incredible support that exceeded the USD $150,000.

The Guatemala Hub designed the entire awareness campaign through visual posts on social media, national and international social communication platforms using #VolcanDeFuego, reaching more than 20K people in total. Moreover, Shapers undertook action from their workspaces to collect goods to be delivered to survivors and most affected population. Furthermore, Shapers took the lead in collection actions, using collaborative platforms, volunteering in shelters and widely communicating our posts, pictures, leading by example, additional to their own cleaning and safety measures using #RespuestaShapersVolcan.

The project was able to reach this goal thanks to the numerous Hubs of the Globa Shapers Community, individual shapers and other civil society community members who contributed with their time and/or financial resources.