Mobile phone users from over 40 countries may now directly donate for the relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation of areas hit by Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda.
The Philippine Disaster Recovery Foundation (PDRF) has launched HelpPH (help.ph), a global campaign for donations via mobile load to help fund programs for relief and reconstruction in partnership with international organizations, Philippine NGOs, government agencies and private companies.
To contribute to HelpPh, mobile phone subscribers overseas must key-in +63-999-7-000-000 (12 digits) as the beneficiary mobile number and then send their donation using the airtime top-up procedure of their specific mobile network operator. The maximum amount per day is US$10. This fund-raising program will continue until December 2013.
For the Philippines, subscribers of Smart, Sun Cellular and Talk ‘n Text may directly donate P5 to HelpPH by texting HELPPH to 5353. They may also donate in amounts P10, P25, P100, P300, P500, and P1,000 by texting HELPPH <space><amount> to 5353 (Example: HELPPH 10 to 5353). Other channels include money transfer to Western Union, i-Remit and over-the-counter transactions in all 340 Land Bank branches nationwide.
“The unprecedented scale of the devastation inflicted by Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda requires a global response. Through HelpPh, we are providing people all over the world the means to send help to those in greatest need through a few clicks on their mobile phones,” said PDRF chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan.
Funds gathered will be directly channeled to immediate relief efforts and later, to long-term recovery programs in areas with the greatest need. For this purpose, PDRF if firming up cooperative arrangements with organizations like the Philippine Red Cross, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Caritas Manila, Philippine Business for Social Progress, Gawad Kalinga, the United States Agency for International Development and the GSMA, the global association of the mobile phone industry.
Immediate relief operations will be prioritized for remote areas not reached by mainstream relief distribution. Corporate members will be tapped to provide transport, logistics and communications to enable timely coordination of relief efforts by government and relief agencies.
This includes “information as relief” to provide affected communities with news and information through mobile phones, the Internet, social media and satellite TV, as well as medical relief through on-the-ground missions, telemedicine and psycho-social therapy.
Initial partners for this effort include Alagang Kapatid Foundation, Caritas Manila, PLDT-Smart Foundation, Maynilad Water Services, Philippine Red Cross and TV5 network.
For shelter and resettlement, PDRF will work with various partners including Gawad Kalinga, Habitat for Humanity, One MERALCO Foundation and the Philippine Contractors Association (PCA).
To provide education for displaced school children, PDRF will help implement innovating learning programs, including mobile learning systems, in cooperation with the Department of Education, the Central Visayas Institute Foundation and the GSMA.
Through its mobile subsidiary, Smart has partnered with four leading global mobile airtime transfer companies that include Transfer To, Tranglo, www.ezetop.com, and Aryty, which together cover more than 250 partner mobile network operators in 90 countries, serving 59 billion mobile subscribers, 60 percent of whom, or about 3.6 billion, are prepaid users.
The PDRF was organized in 2009 following the devastation caused by Typhoon Ketsana/Ondoy and is made up of major private sector companies and leading NGOs.
It is one of three identified institutional conduits approved by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (Central Bank of the Philippines) together with the Department of Social Welfare and Development and the Philippine Red Cross.
Aside from HelpPh, the PDRF also holds a crowdfunding campaign for Typhoon Yolanda victims through an online donation platform called the Brick-by-Brick , which has so far raised over Php10 million. Donations through Brick-by-Brick may be sent via PayPal, PasaBayad and Smart Money.
Meanwhile, Smart Communications, Inc. is giving 6,500 cellular phones to businesses or retail establishments in areas crippled by Typhoon Yolanda. The intention is to inject life into the local economies and provide a channel for cash transfer. Around 87% of Smart’s cellular infrastructure is now operational in the Visayas.
“Cleary, we need to rethink the entire infrastructure robustness of our telecommunications systems in order for it to withstand the ‘new normal’,” says Pangilinan.
