| Spring 2004 Update
Other Task Force stories: |
La Rueda Heads Across the Border The Rueda de salvamento y respuesta ante emergencias continues to spread professional salvage and emergency response advice around the Spanish-speaking world, most recently in Mexico.
The Heritage Emergency National Task Force has donated 300 of the Spanish-language Emergency Response and Salvage Wheels to Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historía (National Institute of Anthropology and History). The Wheel request from the Commissioner of Special Projects resulted from a visit to Task Force staff in November 2003 by a delegation from the INAH, part of a State Department International Visitors Project related to disaster preparedness for cultural heritage. INAH and the Task Force exchanged publications and information on their programs. The Rueda was released in May 2002, and 14,500 copies were distributed free to libraries, museums, archives, and historic preservation organizations in California, Florida, New Mexico, Texas, Puerto Rico, parts of Arizona and Colorado, and the metropolitan areas of New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago. In addition, 3,000 Ruedas were sent to nonprofit causes in the U.S. and abroad, including international conferences and disaster management workshops. The Lampadia Foundation distributed 4,000 Ruedas to cultural institutions in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. INAH is a Mexican federal bureau established in 1939 to guarantee the research, preservation, protection, and promotion of Mexico's prehistoric, archaeological, anthropological, historical, and paleontological heritage. It is responsible for more than 110,000 historical monuments built between the 16th and 19th centuries, and for 29,000 archaeological zones found all over Mexico, of which 150 are open to the public. INAH also supervises more than 100 museums, as well as the Anthropology and History Library and other documentary cultural resources. To learn more, visit the English version of their Web site at www.inah.gob.mx/inah_ing/face.html. The Heritage Emergency National Task Force is sponsored by Heritage Preservation and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. This Wheel donation, as well as the others mentioned in this article, were made possible by the generous support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the St. Paul Companies, Inc. Foundation, and the American Express Company. |