Ammon News - GULF NEWS - Dubai: For nine-year-old Esmail Al Ashqar, giving away his savings this month to children victims of typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines was more important than buying candies or toys.

Esmail and his brother Ebrahim, 7, gave away their savings worth Dh117.50 from their coin bank to the benefit brunch held at the Philippine Consulate-General in Al Ghusais on Friday. The brothers, born to a Filipino mother and Jordanian father, are among the 1,500 Filipinos and non-Filipinos who trooped to the consulate to donate their time, money, goods, and effort.

The benefit brunch raised a sum of Dh112,412 on Friday which will be sent on Saturday to aid the typhoon victims, a week after super typhoon Haiyan wiped out communities in central Philippines. More than 3,600 people have died and hundreds of thousands rendered homeless.

“When I saw the news, the children suffering, I felt like crying. Everything is destroyed; they don’t have anything, no food. But here in Dubai we have all we need