By Alma
L. Tingcang
ZAMBOANGA CITY -
The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA9) is now accepting
nominations for the 2013 Model Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) Family of the
Year Award (MOFYA) in the Zamboanga Peninsula region.
Labor Communications Officer Mary Jane R. Amarado said Overseas Workers Welfare Administration -IX Regional Director Gabra T. Jumdain urges OFW, non-government organizations, peoples’ organizations, religious groups, community-based socio-civic organizations and local government units to submit their nominations to OWWA9. No individual nominations will be accepted.
“The search focuses on OFW families who have
nurtured strong family relations and properly managed the financial benefits
from overseas employment,” Director Jumdain said.
Ms. Amarado said MOFYA, now on its ninth year, aims to highlight best practices of OFWs and their families in overcoming the challenges of migration.
Criteria for nominations include the following: the
family is headed by an OFW who is formerly or presently working abroad with a
formal or informal contract of employment or work permit, and with proof of
OWWA membership; the OFW, either married or single, is the breadwinner of the
family and has at least four years of work experience as an OFW; the family is
known as a solid/stable family in the locality; and the family is financially
stable.
The Regional screening and selection is tentatively
set on September, 2013 and winners will be named on October 2013. There will be
two families to be awarded model OFW families, the sea-based and the land-based.
“Special awards await the winners and a chance to
be nominated and be named as a national OFW family in the National Awarding
ceremony which will take place sometime in November,” Director Jumdain added.
Two more
awardees will be conferred special awards: the Outstanding Achievement in
Community Projects and Outstanding Achievement in Entrepreneurship. Last year,
Dr. Orlando P. Paber of Zamboanga City, MOFYA Region 9 awardee for land-based
category also received the outstanding achievement in community projects at the
national level, in recognition for his various community involvements.
Nomination forms and other details of the 2013 Model OFW Family search are available and may be downloaded from the OWWA website at www.owwa.gov.ph. (FPG/ALT/PIA9/OWWA9/With report from Mary Jane R. Amarado)
