It humbles me today to share with you one of our latest projects to both provide support to Philippine communities in need as well as raise awareness of Steemit across the Philippines. We were very recently (literally 2 days ago) given the opportunity to meet with and partner with the Philippine Red Cross to help in an effort to raise funds for the people affected by the crisis in Marawi City.

As an organization we were able in 2 days to raise some funds to kickstart a donation effort supported by members of the Steemit Philippines organization to donate to this cause. As an ongoing partnership, we pledged that we would also use the power of Steemit to continue to raise funds and drive awareness to help ongoing recovery efforts as well as other projects that we plan on participating in and partnering on in the future - some of which include growing Steemit Awareness in communities where it can do the most good.

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What is happening in Marawi and Why do we care?

Marawi is a southern province in the Philippines that was recently attacked and occupied and is currently in an ongoing armed conflict with well known terrorist organizations. This conflict started on May 23, 2017. Martial law has been declared in the Mindanao region where this province is located until December 31, 2017. It is believed that one or more of the world's most wanted terrorists by the US State Department reside here.

As a result of the continued fighting, residents of Marawi have either been displaced, injured, kidnapped and there has been a significant number of casualties. Several buildings and houses have been set ablaze and much of Marawi was flattened in what was described by The Economist as the heaviest urban fighting in the Philippines since World War II. On top of this, people trapped or living outside evacuation centers, have died of dehydration, lack of food, and diseases contracted due to living in congested evacuation camps.

Picture Sources

Several countries including China, Russia, Australia and the United States have extend humanitarian aid and the Red Cross is just one of the many organizations involved.

You can read more about the conflict HERE.

How Can the Steemit Community Help?

First and foremost, we would appreciate any support in the form of Upvotes, Resteems, and Follows - Any SBD raised by this post and other posts by members of Team Philippines will be converted to cash and donated to the Philippines Red Cross. Expect us to provide regular updates and screenshots. If you would like to donate, you can donate directly to The Philippine Red Cross using various methods listed HERE. If you would like to donate SBD or Steem, you can send it to @steemph where it will be converted to cash and sent directly to The Philippine Red Cross account we were provided.

We got the opportunity to meet with the Head of the Philippines Red Cross - Atty. Oscar P. Palabyab - Secretary General and present him with a check representing some of the funds we initially raised through the Steemit Philippines community. We also got the opportunity to share with him information about the Steemit platform and the many good things that have come from this global ecosystem. We shared with him briefly our plans to help continue to raise funds using Steemit and our local and global community to help as much as we could.

We were also introduced to members of his staff who were in charge of other Red Cross projects that we could continue to work and partner with to increase awareness of the Steemit platform and to help grow the Steem Philippines community. The two individuals, Lulubelle Nora (not pictured) and Ryan Jay Jopia (Red Cross Youth Manager - pictured below) have arranged for us to meet in the next several days to discuss partnership proposals and future co-sponsored projects.

Your continued support will help immensely. We will continue to keep everyone posted as the partnership grows.

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Overall, the day was eventful. We spent several hours talking to members of the Red Cross, listening to good music thanks to the event hosted by The Red Cross to raise funds, and ended with a number of us from the Steemit Philippines community having dinner and talking about future Steemit projects and initiatives that we wanted to pursue, develop, and partner on. A great day with great people and new friends and all for a worthwhile cause!

Please also visit posts such as the one made by @deveerei (Helping People & Giving: Rebuild Lives!) who is championing another initiative to help support efforts in Marawi.

As always Thanks for reading. Please show your support by clicking Follow, Upvote, Comment, and/or Resteeming this post and let me know what you think in the comments below

I would also appreciate your support in upvoting my Witness so I can continue to help support and grow other Philippines, Asia, and Global projects, Users, and Minnows.

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How to vote?

• Use the witness page https://steemit.com/~witnesses
• scroll down the page until you see the vote box below and enter cloh76.witness
  
• click VOTE and accept my Appreciation and Gratitude!

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