21 March 2013 – Philippine Consul General to Los Angeles Maria Hellen M. Barber-De La Vega signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Mr. Corey Eide, Director for Capacity Building of the American Red Cross of the Los Angeles Region (ARCLA) on March 19 at a ceremony held at the Conference Room of the Philippine Consulate General.

The Consulate and ARCLAR wish to expand their mutually-beneficial relationship to provide assistance and services to families separated by conflict, disaster and other emergencies and support disaster preparedness and humanitarian assistance activities.

In her remarks, Consul General De La Vega expressed her heartfelt gratitude to ARCLAR for the first-ever partnership agreement that it concluded with the Consulate, which was made more significant by the fact that the Filipino community now ranks as the largest Asian American ethnic community in California, with 1.5 million people.

She further said that the partnership agreement with ARCLAR will provide a platform to promote awareness on disaster resiliency in the Filipino community. Both parties will work together to provide disaster preparedness seminars, community outreach, and international services presentations to the Filipino Community.

As an initial activity, both sides will conduct a joint seminar on Disaster Preparedness and resiliency co-organized by the Overseas Filipinos for Good Governance (OFGG), the Philippine Disaster Relief Organization (PeDRO) and the other medical and medical-related alumni organizations. END