CITING the need for more help for the victims of Super-typhoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) in the Visayas, women’s rights group Zonta International District 17 recently donated P6 million to the SM Cares Housing Village, SM’s flagship project to build 1,000 disaster-proof homes in areas affected by the super typhoon.

Daisy Arce, ex-officio director of Zonta Club of Manila Foundation Inc., the oldest club of Zonta International, said the group’s donation was made possible through various fund-raising efforts conducted by its chapters all over the country and the world.

“As the survivors started to pick up their lives and attention has shifted to building shelters for the homeless, District 17 proposed to involve the organization and its members in this effort. Zonta decided to partner with SM Foundation for this project through its SM Cares Housing Project [as it has] a track record, having already finished two hundred houses in Barangay Polambato, Bogo, Cebu, another area devastated by Yolanda,” Arce said.

Zonta Club of Manila is one of the oldest clubs in the country, having been founded in 1952 by some of the country’s outstanding women leader that included Supreme Court Justice Cecilia Muñoz Palma, Senators Geronima Pecson, Helena Benitez and Pacita Madrigal-Warns, Ambassador Trinidad Legarda and Victoria Lopez Araneta, among others.

The donation was turned over to SM Foundation Executive Director Debbie Sy and SM Supermalls President Annie Garcia during the signing of a memorandum of agreement at the SM Corporate Offices in the Mall of Asia.

Sy said they are extremely delighted and honored to have been given the support to the project because, more than a year after the project’s launch in 2013, many individuals and groups still continue to give donations to the housing project. SM is aiming to raise P200 million for the project.

“We are very happy and honored of the trust they continue to give us. This keeps us inspired to see the project through until the last family beneficiary moves in to their new home,” Sy said.

Garcia, for her part, said Zonta’s donation will be used to build 30 houses in the housing village in New Kawayan in Tacloban City.

On November 9, 2014, a year after the devastation, the first Housing Cares Village in Bogo, Cebu, was turned over to the 200 beneficiary-families. Three more villages are being built and turned over to 800 family-beneficiaries by July of this year.