Philippines

CARE’s work in the Philippines

CARE has worked in the Philippines since 1949, when it became the first developing country where CARE started development programmes when we expanded our remit beyond helping people recover from the impact of World War 2. The Philippines is extremely vulnerable to natural disasters, so a major focus of our work is to help communities prepare for and respond to emergencies. We work in partnership with the government, private companies, NGOs and local community groups. Our work includes climate change adaptation and mitigation, natural resource management, disaster risk reduction, and developing early warning systems and response plans.

Innovative solutions to disaster preparedness

CARE supported communities in the Philippines to come up with innovative ways to prepare for potential natural disasters, through the TUKLAS Innovation Labs project funded by the START Network’s Disasters and Emergencies Preparedness Programme. Under the project, which ran from 2017 to 2019, small organisations had to present their innovations in a ‘dragon’s den’ style and the most successful ones were funded and supported through the project. TUKLAS means discovery in Filipino and CARE supported 10 innovations including concepts such as Flaremob – a web based application that can be used to alert residents and evacuation leaders in time of crisis; and the Disaster Preparedness Simulator – a virtual reality simulator with scenarios such as earthquakes and flooding which will be used as a learning activity in schools.

Student in the Philippines using virtual reality headset

The Disaster Preparedness Simulator immerses users in realistic disaster situations – flooding, storm surge, and earthquakes – and requires them to make decisions to survive. Patrick Naui, from Ania Design Lab who came up with the idea, said the aim was to put students in “a disaster situation where they can make life-and-death decisions without compromising their safety”. Lara Severino, one of the co-designers alongside Patrick and their colleague Alyzza Delgado, said:

What we learned through TUKLAS is that the community has to be the centre of our project. We have to learn from their practices and pre-existing systems if the simulator is to become a truly immersive experience.

Read more about CARE's work in the Philippines

CARE Philippines profile 2017

Read about how CARE works with local partners to prepare communities to respond to natural disasters:

CARE Philippines Humanitarian Partnership Platform

You can directly support poor entrepreneurs in the Philippines

Our Lendwithcare programme works with local microfinance institution partners to offer loans to people in poor communities who are starting or building up a small business. Find out more about Lendwithcare and how you can make a small loan directly to an entrepreneur in the Philippines.

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About CARE

Founded in 1945 to send 'CARE packages' to people recovering from war, we have been fighting poverty in the world’s poorest countries for 75 years.

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CARE's impact

We work in 104 countries around the world, saving lives in emergencies and finding long-term solutions to poverty for millions of people every year.

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Our aims

We empower women and girls to fulfil their potential – because when one woman is helped out of poverty, she brings her family and community with her.

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Your support

Your support is what makes our poverty-fighting work possible. You can trust us to spend our funds wisely and effectively to help people in need.

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