Earth Faces to uplift lives of Yolanda survivors

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines – The Earth Faces project featuring 100 families that survived Super Typhoon Yolanda is seeking to uplift their lives and raise public awareness on climate change.

Through photographs and videos, the families will share their stories regarding the onslaught of the typhoon and how they lived through the storm, as well as those who helped them after the storm.

These photos and videos will illustrate the hope and resilience of the survivors and the Filipino people.

When Yolanda struck, 10 million Filipinos in 51 cities and 41 provinces were affected. 

Families lost precious photographs and other family mementos and treasures.

Headshot Clinic and Facial Care Center have joined forces for the Earth Faces project, which intends to raise awareness on climate change as a major contributor to the increased incidence and intensity of extreme weather events such as droughts, heat waves, floods, and tropical storms.

Cristine Mansinares, supervising tourism operations officer of the Negros Occidental provincial tourism office, told The STAR the Earth Faces team went to Sagay City in Negros Occidental yesterday to select five families whose survival stories are the most inspiring, shoot a family portrait in a mangrove location, and document their stories.

Earth Faces has selected Suyac Island in Sagay City for the project.

The Earth Faces team is composed of celebrity photographer Niccolo Cosme of Headshot Clinic, together with Dwight Henry Bayona and Ruma Kristine Arias, environmentalist Anna Oposa of Save Philippine Seas, Nory Joy Torres of Facial Care Center and Dream Project PH founder Prim Paypon Jr.

The Earth Faces team approached members of Dream Project PH when they saw on social media websites the group’s successful Negros Needs You campaign that had raised P2 million in donations for the victims of Typhoon Yolanda in Sagay and Cadiz cities.

The five families to be featured were also beneficiaries of the relief operations.

Dream Project PH distributed the donations to the residents of Cadiz City, Suyac, Molocaboc Daku, Matabas and Barangays Vito and Old Sagay in Sagay City.

The subjects of Earth Faces will be a mix of advocates, celebrities, media personalities and survivors and families shot on location.

A video conceptualized and edited by Emmy Award winner Filipino producer-director Michael Carandang will accompany the campaign.

‘Disaster imagination capabilities’

Science Secretary Mario Montejo called on local government officials and workers to learn from the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that hit Bohol and Typhoon Yolanda that devastated Leyte and Samar last year by improving their “disaster imagination capabilities.”

Montejo, also vice chairman of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, told participants in a workshop and forum in Clark Freeport, Pampanga to use their imagination to anticipate and respond to disasters.

“Let’s take a scenario for public storm warning signals. We hope that warnings issued by our agencies will instantly trigger the disaster imagination of people in a way that a Public Storm Signal No. 3 or No. 4 will prompt early action among the community to adopt action plans such as preemptive evacuation or staying in areas identified as disaster-safe zones,” Montejo said.

The two-day workshop, with the theme “Iba na ang Panahon, Science for Safer Communities,” discussed the hydro-meteorological and geological hazards in Central Luzon as well as an overview of the Department of Science and Techonology’s National Operational Assessment of Hazards (NOAH) and Disaster Risk Exposure Assessment for Mitigation (DREAM) projects, as well as the Office of Civil Defense’s Disaster Information for Nationwide Awareness (DINA) drive.

Montejo stressed that each municipality, city, province and region has distinct landscapes and vulnerabilities.

He said better teamwork of officials of the national government, LGUs and communities should be developed for a better disaster risk reduction strategy.

“We envision to cover the end-to-end process for science-based and scenario-driven community disaster preparedness from early warning and early action to achieve minimum loss and establish quick recovery post disaster,” he added.– With Ding Cervantes