Julia Nebrija, urban planner plants flowers at the Grand Boulevard Hotel | Malate, Manila

Above is the viral photo in Facebook which was originally uploaded by a Filipino tour guide and cultural activist, Carlos Celdran. He took a photo of Julia Nebrija, a filipino-american urban planner who is currently based in Manila, while she was planting some flowers at the abandoned Grand Boulevard Hotel in Malate, Manila.

In his delight to Julia's efforts, Celdran uploaded the picture and introduced Julia to the netizens through his own Facebook account. The uploaded photo had the following caption:

"Meet Julia Nebrija. She's into urban renewal and sustainable cities. She adopted a flower box outside the abandoned Grand Boulevard Hotel in Malate and planted her own garden. She lives nearby and was just tired of the ugliness right outside her door and decided to take matters into her own hands. Now this is how you fix a city. Start simple. Start small. Start with yourself."

The viral photo caught the attention of GMA news and later Julia was featured by the giant network. According to the news report, she started her project on May 25, 2013. Since then, she gained huge support in the neighborhood and she received several suggestions to further enhance the flower box.

"They told me to put some Sampaguita so it smell nice..the guards ask me to put more plants and maybe we should paint the area. It's nice that people are now starting to think about what else we can do on the street," said Nebrija.

"I think everybody does something small...overtime we can regenerate a city as a whole," she added.

Julia is now targeting to replicate these efforts into other areas in the city.

Now, just one little favor. Can you please share this article to everyone especially to all Filipinos in the country? We want this to become a habit across all cities in the Philippines. Thank you!