Where Boy’s heart is

MANILA, Philippines - Almost every child wants his or her parents to be proud of them. But TV host Boy Abunda took that one step further when he set up Make Your Nanay Proud (MYNP), a foundation that harnesses the power of maternal love as a tool to encourage Filipinos everywhere to be and do better and by extension, build better and stronger communities.

In the one year that MYNP has been in existence, the group has been met with all sorts of reactions, the most common being the belief that it speaks exclusively to mothers. “But what about fathers?” they ask. “Don’t they deserve attention, too?”

Boy explains that MYNP isn’t necessarily shutting fathers out. Rather, when one says, “Make your nanay proud,” they are addressing themselves to children, making them believe in the concept of a mother’s love as a powerful transformative force in Filipino society, and when a child is motivated by this love, anything is possible. As spelled out in its creed, MYNP believes that loving nanay is tantamount to loving tatay and every member of the family since everyone in the world is a child of his or her mother.

“It’s really the love of the child for the mother because our premise is, lahat naman tayo, anak ng nanay. We’re not excluding fathers because fathers and children are all children of their mothers. This whole thing is inclusive in the sense that when we talk of making your nanay proud, we’re talking to all.”

MYNP is guided by a macro-vision or a big goal, which is to help in nation-building and to create communities that celebrate and honor diversity, tolerance, love, courage, industry, patience and other positive virtues.

But the strategy by which they hope to achieve this lofty goal is micro. That’s when they go down to the grassroots level and break things down, make them simpler. “We want to pay attention to the individual,” explains Boy. “We want to talk with children, talk to mothers, we want to talk to our friends to get them do what they can at home, at work, to just be conscious of making their mothers proud. How? By being the best of who you are, by being the best in all that you do.”

Aside from encouraging individuals to embrace this concept, MYNP as an organization is also doing its best to spread the message through various projects designed to draw attention to different ways in which we can honor our mothers. These include the Bantayog ni Nanay (which will be completed by May this year, when the foundation will be formally launched), a film festival for students called Sine Nanay, the MYNP Talk Express, a MYNP book, MYNP awards and an ongoing livelihood program for Eastern Samar Yolanda victims. They have also gone to jails to talk to mothers who are deprived of liberty and reaching out to them.

But how do these different projects connect to MYNP’s mission to get people to honor their mothers?

“Because at the core of making your nanay proud is caring for others; at the core of it is serving your country. At the core of it is truly loving your community, so for instance, by going to jails and engaging mothers and women who are deprived of freedom, ang mensahe na ibinabahagi mo ay when you make your nanay proud, you love others, you care for the poor, you go to where you are needed. You are not a stand-alone, you are not isolated. Minamahal mo ang bayan mo, minamahal mo ang kapwa mo. So you’re walking the talk,” points out Boy.

For details, visit www.makeyournanayproud.com, call 413-5868 or e-mail at makeyournanayproud@yahoo.com