Western Union honors twenty-five Filipino migrants as Heroes for Better

After months of searching for Filipino migrants who had made an outstanding difference in making a positive impact in the community, The Western Union Company (NYSE:WU), a leader in global payment services, announced today the top 25 Filipino migrants who are living proof that Filipino migrants are indeed our modern day heroes.

Western Union had deemed it important to recognize heroic efforts of Filipino migrants, especially during Filipino Heroes Day, to affirm their invaluable contribution to their families, communities and the country. The migrants did not just send money back home; they had also given pride to the Filipino community with their successful missions.

“Heroes for Better campaign celebrates lives of migrant Filipinos, their work and their personal advocacies because they were the ones who were courageous enough to run after their dreams and in fact, they even took it further by fulfilling other people’s dreams,” shares Patricia Riingen, Senior Vice President, South East Asia & Oceania, Western Union. “The campaign does not just recognize and tell their stories, it also provides them a platform to inspire others to pay it forward.”

Present in last Monday’s Heroes for Better press conference were three heroes –  

 

Nilo Beltran, founder of the Skills Caravan – a non-profit organization which provides free technical skills workshops to jail inmates, out of school youth and unemployed members of underprivileged communities in the Philippines;  

 

Edmond Corpuz, founder of the “Black Pencil” advocacy project which helped bring school supplies to 1,200 school children in rural areas; and  

 

Nestor Puno, a missionary who teaches a small school in Japan for Filipino and Filipino-Japanese children who cannot enter regular schools due to their residency status.

“I guess it holds true for all of us heroes that it started with an issue that had affected us and it simply compelled us to take action. It’s not that we wanted to change the world, we just wanted to help in our own way,” says Nestor Puno.

“This recognition given to us by Western Union only inspires us to continue and even extend the reach of our advocacies, involve more people, and hopefully influence other migrants to start their own missions too,” adds Nilo Beltran.

Learn more about inspiring stories of the top 25 Filipino migrants by visiting wuheroesforbetter.org.

About Western Union

The Western Union Company (NYSE: WU) is a leader in global payment services. Together with its Vigo, Orlandi Valuta, Pago Facil and Western Union Business Solutions branded payment services, Western Union provides consumers and businesses with fast, reliable and convenient ways to send and receive money around the world, to send payments and to purchase money orders. As of June 30, 2015, the Western Union, Vigo and Orlandi Valuta branded services were offered through a combined network of over 500,000 agent locations in 200 countries and territories and over 100,000 ATMs and kiosks, and included the capability to send money to millions of bank accounts. In 2014, The Western Union Company completed 255 million consumer-to-consumer transactions worldwide, moving $85 billion of principal between consumers, and 484 million business payments. For more information, visitwww.westernunion.com.