Ang Peregrino Recommends 72: Ako Mismo

Ako Mismo
URL: http://​www​.akomismo​.org/

Ako Mismo is a cam­paign by DDB Cares anchored on opti­mism and patri­o­tism. It is a bat­tle against indif­fer­ence and the feel­ing that the indi­vid­ual is help­less. Amidst all the bad news and neg­a­tivism grip­ping the nation, Ako Mismo pro­vides a refresh­ing mes­sage of hope and empow­er­ment. It is an apo­lit­i­cal and inclu­sive move­ment to ener­gize and reju­ve­nate Fil­ipinos, espe­cially the youth, and move them to action. It is our col­lec­tive desire that the action aris­ing from our indi­vid­ual com­mit­ments as Ako Mismo advo­cates will mobi­lize a groundswell of change, con­tribut­ing to a bright future for our country.

It was spurred by the urgent need to bring hope to Fil­ipinos, par­tic­u­larly the youth, in the face of grow­ing cyn­i­cism and skep­ti­cism that is height­ened by the cur­rent polit­i­cal, eco­nomic, social and moral crises. While we all believe that most Fil­ipinos desire change, apa­thy is a gen­eral prob­lem because we do not know where to even begin to solve our many problems.

While there are many dif­fer­ent ways to begin, Ako Mismo starts with some­thing we can con­trol: our­selves; believ­ing that change can emanate from the power of the indi­vid­ual con­tribut­ing in small, mean­ing­ful ways and build­ing up a col­lec­tive effort that can change the nation.

And judg­ing from the phe­nom­e­nal response it has got­ten so far, the time had truly come for an advo­cacy such as this. Fil­ipinos were just look­ing for a vehi­cle to express what has long been in their hearts.

When you go to the web­site, you can sign up and make pub­lic your own per­sonal com­mit­ments (when I was writ­ing this, there were 226,000 com­mit­ments). The com­mit­ments range from help­ing out char­i­ties, to help­ing spread finan­cial edu­ca­tion, to being proud of his art, to being pos­i­tive about life, to begin­ning change from within.

Com­pa­nies have also approached AkoMismo to help out in their campaign.

You can also get AkoMismo dog­tags as a sym­bol of your com­mit­ment to the cause. The dog­tag is a mil­i­tary sym­bol, a com­mit­ment to a mis­sion, and we see the advo­cates as an army of hope. I am not sure where to buy the dog­tags though. Check out the web­site your­self if you want to know where to buy these.

For remind­ing us some­thing we prob­a­bly know in our hearts but have stopped believ­ing in a long time–that CHANGE starts with ME–Ang Pere­grino Rec­om­mends Ako Mismo this week.