Amigos de la Madre Tierra

Amigos de la Madre Tierra (Friends of Mother Earth) empowers communities to: 1) respond effectively to climate-driven emergencies; 2) prevent deforestation and biodiversity loss; and 3) foster a sustainable, resilient future for Bolivia’s people and ecosystems. We achieve this by organizing local Community Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) that safeguard lives, homes, and infrastructure. Through locally led initiatives, these CERTs integrate disaster preparedness, recovery, mitigation, and climate adaptation to strengthen community health and ecosystem resilience.

Amigos de la Madre Tierra is building Bolivia’s first nationwide network of local volunteer emergency responders. In February 2026, we conducted a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Train-the-Trainer course in Cochabamba led by certified instructors from FEMA (USA) and SENAPRED (Chile). The program followed internationally recognized CERT training standards and included a formal evaluation process to ensure that participants met the requirements for certification. Twenty-four trainers from six departments successfully completed the course and are now preparing to establish CERT teams in their own communities. While the program begins with emergency response training, it will expand to include preparedness, recovery, mitigation, and climate-adaptation strategies to help communities better withstand climate-related disasters.