(Second in a series)
They’re raising funds, they’re taking care of people, they’re making PPE, they’re opening their doors, they’re doing it all.
HopeLab@DLSU of De la Salle University launched #GPULSECOVID19, an online survey that asks participants how they’re doing, mental health-wise. Those with symptoms are sent tips and links to professional services.
Ateneo Bulatao Center for Psychological Services posted tips on looking after one’s mental and psychological well-being.
Ateneo’s Rizal Library lent WiFi devices with load to undergraduate and graduate students who needed internet access for online learning. The Rizal Library staff also had a message for graduating students it posted on Twitter: “Greetings of hope from a physically distant angle! If you’re not graduating this year, we’ll see you when classes resume next year! If you’re graduating, we regret not having the chance to say goodbye. It was an honor to serve you. We miss all of you!”
Jesuit priests quarantined at Ateneo’s Jesuit Residence got busy making alternative face shields. Resident students, seminarians and teachers volunteered at the Ateneo Grade School cafeteria, hauling sacks of rice and preparing family food packs for communities in Metro Manila and Rizal.
La Salle and Ateneo alumni set aside their rivalry to raise P10.5 million for depressed communities through “Bayanihan Musikahan.”
Quarantine facilities
Thomasian architect Dan Lichauco headed the design team that has transformed the Philippine International Convention Center and the Rizal Memorial Stadium into quarantine facilities.
The University of Santo Tomas (UST) has been using 3D printers from “Eat Bulaga” in producing more personal protective equipment (PPE). The UST Faculty of Engineering has also produced ventilators and created the Logistic Indoor Service Assistant robot that UST Hospital now uses. With the robot, health-care providers, without entering patient rooms, can communicate with conscious and stable patients and help them take medicine.
The Far Eastern University (FEU) gym in Alabang is now home to front-liners from the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine. FEU alumni and students of FEU Institute of Technology are working on “Project DWARM,” an artificial-intelligence-enabled thermal scanner which detects the body temperature of 10 people in two to three seconds and can be used at checkpoints to minimize contact with front-liners.
The UST Thomasian Alumni Leaders Association partnered with the Quezon City Lions Club to donate test booths, PPE and infrared thermometers to health centers in Valenzuela, Caloocan and Navotas.
Romar Angelo Javier, a BA Communication Arts student at UST and Tomcat (Tomasian Cable Television) president, distributed food packs and other essentials in Barangay Palapat, Hagonoy, Bulacan.
San Beda University Alumni Association’s Anti-COVID-19 Fund Drive has raised over P1 million and has donated PPE to front-liners at Quirino Memorial Medical Center.
National University (NU) Lady Bulldogs’ Jack Danielle Animam is raising funds for the medical staff and front-liners of Bulacan Medical Center. You can support by donating to Jack Danielle Animam (GCash 0927-2563958 and BPI account no. 2269187819).
Ria Nabalan, former NU Lady Bulldog with a stellar record, is a front-liner with the Philippine Navy.
Immunity-boosting food
Food tech students at the College of Home Economics of the University of the Philippines (UP) in Diliman created Lucal, a ginger-calamansi concentrate to help boost the immune system of front-liners of the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) and the Lung Center of the Philippines.
Northwest Samar State University has produced energy-boosting cookies and immunity-boosting juice for front-liners in the university’s food processing laboratory. It has also raised funds and given out 5 kilograms of rice and pack of tinapa to 700 pedicab drivers in their city.
The Students’ Actions Vital to the Environment and Mother Earth (Save Me) Movement of Northwest Samar State University handed out food packs and sanitary essentials to street sweepers, garbage collectors, river patrollers and sanitary landfill workers in Calbayog City. Students and alumni have initiatives for hospital front-liners, preparing ethyl alcohol, hand sanitizers and food packs for them.
Ateneo’s Center for Computing Competency and Research, the Department of Health, and the Department of Science and Technology-Philippine Council for Health Research and Development have worked on creating Fassster (https://fassster.ehealth.ph/covid19/), a hub for disease records, environmental parameters and other information that will help facilitate the understanding of how diseases spread.
Hot meals, hygiene packs
Adamson University’s student government is offering assistance to students stranded in nearby dormitories. The administration has been distributing hot meals and hygiene packs to front-liners and relief packs to communities in Parañaque, Valenzuela, Malate and more.
Adamson has also lent its buses to transport Makati Medical City front-liners, and welcomed PGH staff into its dorms.
The sisters of St. Paul University Manila, which has been running a PPE campaign for front-liners at St. Paul of Chartres hospitals, provided front-liners with temporary home. The quarters were full but when they got a request from PGH workers, they found a way to accommodate more.
Sr. Evangeline Anastacio wrote, “Reading this message reminds of the night when Mary and Joseph were looking for a place to stay … and they were turned away … except in the stable. The rooms we have originally provided for front-liners are all taken. All rooms are full! But do we have the heart to turn Jesus away? For those who love, there’s always enough room in our hearts. We can accommodate 12 more staff.”
Alumni and students of Don Bosco Technical College’s Innovision Center are developing low-cost ventilators needed in the fight against COVID-19. They have also produced PPE, including face shields, washable face masks, gowns, aerosol boxes and more.
UP Los Baños has offered the use of research laboratories as subnational testing center for COVID-19.
