How you can help Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda victims

We had heard when Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) would be arriving, but I guess we weren’t prepared for what it would leave in its wake. For quite some time, we heard nothing about the areas that it hit because it caused a media blackout. It wasn’t until I saw photos of it in Yahoo! News that I understood the magnitude of its devastating visit.

This massive boat was washed ashore, joining the houses and lives (people, plants and animals) that Haiyan destroyed in its wake.
But you know, we can’t just sit here and do nothing. We can do something. Here are ways we can help.
Via Philippine Red Cross:
Those who are looking for loved ones who have not been responding to SMS or social network messages can use this form to locate/trace them.

Volunteers can also check out this mapping advocate’s blog about Haiyan/Yolanda so they can assess the situation.

Via UNICEF Philippines:

If you want to donate goods instead of cash, you can also do so through the University of the Philippines:

Viber also sent this message when I logged into my phone:

EDIT: This just in from some of the people who messaged me via FB:

http://www.obphil.com
https://www.facebook.com/obphil
http://obphil.com/v2/page/p/emergency-aid-donations

And for all of us bloggers out there: What my sister Alex said last night just hit me today. In addition to donating, we have a bit of power in social media and we can help with these organizations’ efforts. We can post about these venues for donation on our blogs and on FacebookĀ (through your own official pages), and we can pay to promote our posts. The last time I paid a measly $10 to promote a post, it reached around 5,000 people. Facebook’s minimum is $3. Even if only 1/4th of those people take action, that’s better than no action at all.

There’s also this related article about UN needing your tweets for disaster response.

I urge all of you to help rebuild those precious lives.

3 Comments

  1. The Reluctant Stylista

    November 11, 2013 at 12:44 pm
    Reply

    I really love Viber for this. šŸ™‚

  2. skysenshi

    November 11, 2013 at 1:33 pm
    Reply

    And I love Facebook for making my initial $10 go a long way. Reached nearly 7K people. Imagine if even 1/4th of that donated P100…

    Grabe ang busy ng Red Cross, though. I donated at 10AM, they confirmed receipt at 7PM. Whoa.

  3. skysenshi

    November 11, 2013 at 11:52 pm
    Reply

    Thanks for the link. I'll add it to the blog post so as not to produce redundant content. Thanks again! šŸ™‚

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