Tzu Chi Foundation Philippines Reveals Success of Helping

NEW WORLD MAKATI HOTEL, MAKATI – For much of our lives, we sought solace in prayers amid anxiety and uncertainty. Such is the work being done by the representatives of our featured speaker last week, the Tzu Chi Foundation, the world’s biggest Buddhist humanitarian organization, founded in 1966. Today, this organization has grown with over 10 million volunteers in 52 countries, including the Philippines.

Unknown to many, Tzu Chi Foundation has been here for 22 years now, working without fanfare, in disaster-stricken areas as they endeavor to transform lives through its various programs in disaster relief and rehabilitation, education, medicine, and environmental protection. Thus, last week, became a big revelation of the immense help it has done to the people whose lives it has touched.

Tzu Chi Foundation was a recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership back in 1991. Its cash prize of $30,000.00 was donated to the victims of the Mt. Pinatubo eruption.

Tzu Chi Foundation Philippines caught the attention of the public in 2013 during its relief operations in Leyte, after Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) devastated the province and left more than 6,000 people dead. The foundation’s volunteers arrived in the province seven days after the typhoon struck –– being among the first responders in Leyte, as they often are in disaster-stricken areas here in the Philippines.

In Tacloban, Leyte, the Tzu Chi volunteers immediately launched a 19-day program, spurring the survivors to clean up their communities through a cash-for-work system where each participant earned Php 500 for a day’s work. To hasten the clean-up effort, the foundation brought in 54 units of heavy equipment to haul tons of debris out of the city.

Tzu Chi Philippines emphasizes the spiritual transformation of its volunteers as a core value and is dedicated to five missions: charity, medicine, education, environmental protection, and the promotion of humanistic values. Truly, its success is the hope of a nation in need.