Seeking to gain knowledge about resilience, this case study considered a 2007-09 Red Cross preparedness project funded by the Disaster Preparedness European Community Humanitarian Office (DIPECHO). The project was implemented around the Nevado del Huila volcano in Colombia, in a largely rural area with a predominantly indigenous population. The findings and analysis point to the importance of listening to and learning from the community, including its traditional and indigenous resilience practices, as well as the iterative nature of resilient development. The field research also yielded interesting material about perceptions and practices of resilience in Nasa indigenous communities.

This report is part of a series that seeks to draw lessons from resilience projects in Latin America and the Pacific. Follow the links below to the other papers in the series:

• Addressing Water Shortages: A catalyst for more resilient development in Fiji
• Building Resilience Through Iterative Processes: Mainstreaming ancestral knowledge, social movements and the making of sustainable programming in Bolivia
• Learning from Hindsight: A synthesis report on Oxfam resilience research

This research was conducted with the support of the Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies.