The Filipino Community (FilCom) in Dubai will launch a fund-raising programme for the thousands of flood-affected people in the Philippines on August 31.

The executive committee (Execom) of the FilCom had sent an initial assistance of Dh10,000 to the victims across Luzon through the Philippine Red Cross. Alan Bacason of FilCom told Khaleej Times that the flood assistance was set aside from the existing funds of the organisation for calamity purposes.

He said that the 85 active member-organisations of FilCom are in the planning stage to come up with flood assistance programme. “Rehabilitation of affected families will take three months to complete, hence, our encompassing assistance programme will still be on time.”

He also said that the group also created a task force to coordinate all assistance efforts from individuals and groups outside FilCom. “This task force was created to cater to the needs of individuals and organisations for a coordinator. Donors, who are members of active Filipino member-organisations, are taken care of by their presidents.”

Dubbed as “Task Force Habagat”, this task force will coordinate within the community in terms of in-kind donations.

Wendell Castro, president of United Cebuanos and chairman of the Task Force Habagat, said that two cargo forwarders have already committed to ship the in-kind donations to Manila. “We have been waiting for others to join. But, we already have the commitment of LBC and Makati Express. Makati Express will ship at least ten jumbo boxes.”

So far, five other Filipino groups and organisations have signified intention to collect and ship in-kind donations. These are the Alpha Phi Omega UAE Alumni Association, Filipino Volunteer of Modern Hip Hop Dancers, St. Mary’s Filipino Community Choir, IBIDA Performing Arts UAE, and the Sangguniang Masang Pilipino International Inc.