Abu Dhabi: An Abu Dhabi-based Filipino community group is helping to raise money to provide first aid kits to schools in the Philippines. Hoops Basketball has so far helped 10 schools so through its initiative.
“Many schools in the Philippines unfortunately lack first aid kits, what they have is insufficient and so we decided to partner with the Red Cross Philippines to raise funds to provide schools with the necessary first aid kits they need,”Gulf News quoted Angelo Salarza, one of the founders behind Hoops Basketball, as saying.
“So far with the funds we have raised, we have managed to provide 10 schools with first aid kits, but we are aiming to do more and hope to reach more schools. So, we will be running our project throughout the year to make sure we can make a big impact and provide first aid kits to as many schools possible. The schools we are targeting are those that are in areas affected by typhoons, and so we are hoping that with our help that when a natural disaster does strike, these schools will be better prepared to handle such a situation and deal with any injuries,” he added.
Medical aid kits are crucial necessity in the Philippines, which is often hit by typhoons every year, the report said.
Salarza reportedly explained that the funds are raised by organising basketball tournaments — teams who want to participate in the tournament pay an entrance fee, with all the fees collected and donated for the project.
“We have managed to raise Dh3,000 from one tournament alone, and right now we are in the middle of holding our second tournament,” he said. “Overall we are planning to have at least five tournaments in the year, and our target is to raise Dh15,000 or more through these tournaments,” he added.
Salarza said combining a popular sports activity with a good cause made it easy to attract supporters.
“There is a lot of enthusiasm for our tournaments because basketball is a popular sport among the Filipino community, and at the same time we are doing it for a good cause back home in the Philippines, so getting people to join our tournaments is really not that hard. We get a lot of people and teams who want to take part. A lot of our members have also had personal experiences of witnessing a typhoon, so that makes them want to help even more, because they know what it is like,” he was quoted as saying by Gulf News.
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