The longest lockdown in the world
When Luzon was put on Enhanced Community Quarantine in mid-March, there was just this overwhelming feeling of uncertainty. The COVID numbers were increasing exponentially alongside the growing cries of help from frontliners and vulnerable Filipino families.
We all felt restless. Every day was a new horror: A frontliner walking eight hours to work because of the transportation shutdown, hospitals at full capacity, and displaced jeepney drivers begging for food. Surely there has to be something we can do, we all said at the studio.
We weren’t alone. Filipinos everywhere began organizing left and right. Donation drives for PPEs, carpools for frontliners, food drives for displaced families, and the call to purchase more test kits. People who could help wanted to help, but we needed to make sure that help would reach those who needed it most.
This is how HFH was born. What started out as a simple database site ran by a few groups eventually evolved into a website that could show the current needs of hospitals all over the country thanks to the HFH network of over 400 volunteers.
HFH provided a platform for 300+ organizations, coordinated the needs of 220 barangays, and linked 40 hospitals to institutional partners. The community grew exponentially with over 2M social media impressions, 700 hospitals logged on the heat map, and 25k food packs solicited and distributed to communities in need.
The time to help is now.
The first version of HFH was launched within two weeks. It started out as a database of verified initiatives that were organized according to specific areas of concern. While other members of the task force took on the key operations, And A Half designed and developed the website along with a standard brand identity for the site.
The brand had to inspire people to act and to act now. It needed to convey urgency and result into action. We constantly iterated and refined the website design to meet the demands as they came. Whether it was improving how information was laid out (UI/UX) or further refining our search engine, we were always looking for ways to make the site better.
More than just design
The next major development was the addition of a heat map for Philippine hospitals. HFH teamed up with the brains behind sakay.ph to create a map that could visualize the needs of over 700 hospitals in real time. This was made even easier through a coded algorithm by Switchboard which allowed volunteers to plug in collected data from hospitals on a regular basis.
Good design may have made a difference, but it wasn’t the only thing. HFH hit the ground running because of the different perspectives and expertise that everyone brought to the table. From volunteer activation, coordinating with civil society orgs, data analysis, to web development, everyone had a role to play and we all trusted each other to do it well, even if we had never met in person.
“It may sound cheesy, but the whole movement showed that a lot gets done when people put aside their differences and unite for a common goal.”
Stories of hope
Civil society plays an important role during times of crisis. As HFH officially winds down, we published an online manual for anyone who might think of creating something similar.
We’re always hoping for the situation to get better, what other choice do we have otherwise? It may sound cheesy, but the whole movement showed that a lot gets done when people put aside their differences and unite for a common goal. As the saying goes: Don’t panic, organize.
