DIGITAL ART by Heart Marasigan.
Have you ever heard of the names Col. Joseph McMicking and Mercedes Zobel-McMicking? You might think that the people being referred to are superstars, Hollywood artists, or politicians, but in reality, they aren’t. They are likely to be ordinary people who have made a significant impact in their communities or have contributed to cause in a meaningful way. They are the founders of the Ayala Foundation, which is committed to community development and working with communities to identify compelling development needs and provide solutions with measurable outcomes. They envision communities where people are creative, productive, self-resilient, and proud to be Filipinos.
The organization that these individuals have founded continues to expand its core values and mission throughout the community. As their organizations expand, they are able to reach more individuals and provide them with the resources and support they need to thrive. In accordance with their core, they formed a collaboration with the City Government of Borongan to promote "Maging Handa: Upskilling Disaster Responders”, an invaluable program that focuses on enhancing the skills and knowledge of disaster respondents. This program will not only provide essential insights into disaster preparedness but will also serve as a milestone in the Ayala Foundation’s first-ever activity in Eastern Samar. This contains a set of measures tackled in advance by governments, organizations, communities, or individuals to better respond and cope with the immediate repercussions of a disaster, whether it be human-induced or caused by natural hazards.
In addition, this certain event will help aggrandize the safety, security, and economic well-being of the city. By comprehending natural hazards, the people living around the city can better understand how these phenomena work and the threats they pose. This will save countless lives, speed up people's recovery, and save money.
According to Professor Helene Joffe, Professor of Psychology and the leader of their conducted international study, face-to-face workshops like the Ayala Foundation and the City Government of Borongan’s doing increase household preparedness for disasters. They conclude that face-to-face training, or even simply home observations, by external sources such as a fire department could be a way to ensure that measures are put in place by householders across a population to prepare for natural disasters. The very idea of a disaster being ‘natural’ obscures how much humans can do to protect themselves from such events.
Additionally, the City Government of Borongan, in cooperation with the Ayala Foundation, promotes a more advanced technology wherein disaster preparedness and response will be more efficient. According to Dr. Ted Esguerra, instructor of the Wilderness Search and Rescue Philippines, they are planning to help the city for an accessible medical tools and equipment that will help the public and private sector to save lives even without going to hospitals. They are increasing technologies that will help to rescue life like Public Access Defibrillator (PAD) which are placed in strategic locations to increase the likelihood of one being in the proximity of a person experiencing cardiac arrest. There are a lot of projects that the City Government and the Ayala Foundation is working towards resiliency, environmental consciousness and sensitivity.
This event continues its long way journey to lead to its destination as it works hard to achieve greater reach and impact for Boronganons. Strongly believing in the need to play an active part in the nation’s development, it has chosen to respond more actively to the changing needs and aspirations of the community they live in. As what the organization and the City Government promotes, we should be heroic in making our community prepared in any disasters. We cannot stop natural disasters but we can arm ourselves with knowledge. Be a hero in your community, be heroic.
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