By Paulo Fugen

In the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, Francine Dinglasan, a Filipino junior at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, wanted to do more than small group pledges to aid groups, even though her hometown of San Pedro, Laguna, wasn’t hit by the mammoth storm.

This week she organized the “Aid the Philippines” campaign, a fundraising effort that would collect money and other relief goods, like food and clothing, at several drop-off points throughout Education City.

“I figured that a campaign like this will work since no one has done it in EC,” Dinglasan said.

Dinglasan’s campaign was the only major effort made to support the victims of Typhoon Haiyan that reached out to the entire Education City community, according to Mohammed Fakhro, campus life officer at Qatar Foundation.

He said that the Georgetown School of Foreign Service in Qatar, Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar and the EC Recreation Center held smaller fundraising efforts as well. “Those were done privately,” said Fakhro.

Northwestern University in Qatar also sponsored an aid drive, with the Facilities department collecting money through a collection box located at their office. The NU-Q drive managed to gather QR 6,000 from the NU-Q community, according to an email sent out by Ray Corcoran, facilities director at NU-Q.

Corcoran said that the department felt that they needed to do something to show that they appreciated the Filipino workers who work in the CMU-Q building, especially since one of them lost their home as a result of the typhoon.

“They are our extended family here at NU-Q,” Corcoran said

However, the Education City community also responded well to Dinglasan’s campaign. That campaign, which ran from November 14- 18, has managed to collect more than QR21, 000 and several boxes of relief goods so far.

Dinglasan also mentioned that she received many emails about what items would be accepted by the campaign from friends throughout Education City.

“It just shows how much the Education City community cares,” she said.

Dinglasan explained that the money collected from the drive will be given to the Qatar Red Crescent, while the relief goods will be sent to Samahang Batangueno- Qatar, a local Filipino community support organization, which will be repacking the items at the Philippine School of Doha on Friday.

Efforts to support the victims of Typhoon Haiyan are continuing. Scotty for Service, a CMU-Q student organization that promotes community service among students, hosted a bake sale in order to collect additional money at the HBKU International Festival on Thursday. The revenue from the bake sale will be added to the money raised by Dinglasan’s Aid the Philippines drive.