Reacción (Red de Acción Comunitaria)

Red de Acción Comunitaria is an open hardware project for disaster response. It consisted of a community-based intervention model that applies technology for the development of resilient communities.

The project involved communities of makers and citizens living in areas with social or environmental issues to ideate, design, and implement solutions for monitoring and communication.

Red de Acción Comunitaria acted on two fronts: 1. Technical co-creation of technology for social development with rural communities for disaster response and relief, 2. Community training for monitoring and response through participatory diagnostics and design.

A first pilot was implemented in Ahuachapán, El Salvador, with support from Lacnic/FRIDA, through a process of co-creation on which users and experts gave input and participated in the design of the system. We also developed relationships at a local and regional level for the growth and sustainability of the project for the next five years.

The project was presented with support from the Fab Lab Network, generating strategic alliances in different countries. The project received over 50 media mentions regionally. Some workshops were showcased or reproduced in Canada, United States, Mexico, Guatemala and Colombia.

Manufacturing of the Reacción Kit

This video shows how to create a PCB board without a pick and place machine.

These are ideas developed by the team at Reacción:

• Homemade Disaster Kit
• Gamification for social perception: introducing scientific literacy to dabblers in citizen science

• https://programafrida.net/archivos/project/redes-de-accion-comunitaria-kit-reaccion
• https://blog.lacnic.net/programa-frida/un-dispositivo-electronico-que-permite-salvar-vidas
• https://comunidad.socialab.com/challenges/escalamientosfrida/idea/19869