How it works#

Escudo is four things: people who agreed in advance, a button that reaches them all at once, rules for what happens next, and signs saying so. This section is the first three, end to end.

Two words, used precisely#

Everything below turns on two terms. They mean one thing each, everywhere on this site.

The Red Escudo is the people — the neighbours who have joined. Not an app, not an organisation, not a building.

The button is the thing you press to raise the alarm. There is one button in the model. It exists in two forms, because not everybody can use a phone.

One button, two forms: the virtual button in Telegram, which asks Fire, Medical, Crime or Emergency; and a physical button on a wall or worn, with one press and no options. Both produce the same alert into the same group.

The virtual button is for anyone with a phone — built and in use. A physical button is for anyone who can’t work a phone in a crisis: a pendant, a watch, a unit on the kitchen wall, or simply the phone they already own. The form is a detail of the person, not of the system.

Which is why the categories are options on one button, not a row of buttons. A neighbour has one thing to remember: press it.

Four of those options are emergencies and wake the whole village. One — pedir ayuda — arrives silently, for the things that are a real need but not an emergency.

The whole model in eight lines#

  1. Neighbours join the Red Escudo. Joining means saying yes to two things: wake me, and I’ll go if I can.
  2. Something happens. Whoever notices it — the person in trouble, a neighbour, a passer-by — presses the button, in whichever form they have.
  3. Call 062 or 112 first, always, if the situation needs them. The button does not replace the call.
  4. The alert reaches every member at once: what kind, who raised it, when, and a location if it was shared.
  5. Whoever can go, says so in the group — so the rest know it’s covered and nobody arrives to find eleven people in a kitchen.
  6. They go, and they observe, report and help. They never intervene, pursue or detain.
  7. False alarm? Press False alarm. Nobody is told off. That’s the price of people pressing the button when it’s real.
  8. Someone closes it off in the group afterwards, in one line.

In this section#

  • The Red Escudo — who’s in it, what joining commits you to, and the handful of jobs somebody has to hold.
  • How an alert flows — the eight lines above, in detail, with what each person actually does.
  • Types of emergency — the four categories, and why the response differs for each.

The rules of engagement live in the Protocol; the button itself is in Technology.

Backward What the evidence says The Red Escudo Forward