Building Resiliency in Mexico City

The Trauma Resource Institute (TRI) is a non-profit organization committed to developing trauma-informed and resiliency-informed individuals and communities around the world. Through it's Community Resiliency Model (CRM)® program, TRI strives to educate individuals about their nervous system and to teach easy-to-learn wellness skills to be used for self-care as well as care for others. A CRM® Teacher Training program has also been developed in order to sustainably scale and implement the model in regions that have been impacted by natural or human-made disasters.

On September 19, 2017, a 7.1 earthquake struck Mexico City and its surroundings resulting in widespread destruction and more than 200 deaths. According to Mariel Andrade, a psychologist in Mexico City, the main problems following the earthquake have been:

1.   People are scared of entering the buildings or re-inhabiting their houses.
2.   Other people refuse to leave damaged buildings and office workers are being forced to work in perilous conditions.
3.   People that are not around damaged buildings are scared to go into their houses and offices, and –understandably– are specially scared of the places where they lived at the time of the earthquake.

Other immediate psychological reactions that have affected the population are akin to acute trauma responses such as:

1.   Constant fear of an aftershock.
2.   Hyper-attention to movement in their surroundings.
3.   Nausea, feelings of dizziness.
4.   Feeling that the ground moves around them.
5.   Constant hearing of the seismic alarm.
6.   Insomnia due to anxiety or fear of not hearing the alarm while they sleep.
7.   Hyperarousal and – in some cases – dissociative states.

TRI has recently been contacted by multiple people in the U.S. and in Mexico who were either trained in or familiar with our Community Resiliency Model (CRM)® and are requesting TRI's services in supplying a 5-day CRM® Teacher Training to approximately 30 professionals and nonprofessionals in that community, in order to strengthen individual and communal resilience and wellbeing. 

In order to be able to make this happen, TRI is seeking funding support in the amount of $25,000, which will cover the following costs directly related to the training:

- 1 Master Trainer
- 7 Facilitators 
- CRM Manuals and Pocket Cards
- Material Use Fee
- Continued Mentoring and Support (via Zoom consultations and online learning)
- As well as costs related to travel, accomodation and meals.

It is our hope that through this training and continued support, the participants will better be able to track their own nervous systems in order to bring the body, mind and spirit back into greater balance, as well as teach family, friends and their wider community about the wellness skills of CRM. For more information about this project, please click here.

Please donate now to support this cause!


The above image has become very powerful symbol for Mexicans. It is not only a symbol of strength, but also the hand gesture used by rescuers and brigadiers to silence volunteers around collapsed structures to help listen for signs of life. It is a symbol of both expectation and hope, and has helped build a rhetoric of collaboration and community in recent times. Thank you for being a part of it!
                                                                                      -Mariel Andrade



       This training is co-sponsored by IBERO University