“At the end of the day, everyone is a star and deserves a chance to shine!”

Every year, EAP organises an Annual Family Day to celebrate every single one of our children and their families. On the 23rd of July this year, we finally had our first physical Family Day after 2 years, at GSC Starling Mall! The last two years we had to settle for an online celebration where we met on an online platform from the safety of our homes due to the pandemic, while this year we were able to be together physically. It was such an eventful day, buzzing with excitement, happiness and love. 

There were multiple booths outside the cinema hall to greet our guests as they arrived. A photobooth was set up for families to take family pictures and capture these exciting moments. We also prepared a Kids’ Area that was equipped with fun activities for the kiddos. The Hope Project had a booth as well, displaying our merchandise for sale, in support of our nonprofit work to make world-class services for autism accessible to all. 

The event started at 10am in the morning, with our honourable guests walking in with smiles and excitement. The atmosphere lit up as families met up with the team, after not being able to meet physically for so long. We were so proud of our children being able to tolerate the new place, changes and generalising their flexibility targets! 

The family were then ushered into the cinema hall as the premiere of the production started. Together with every child, family and team member, the Events and Media team had worked hard to produce this year’s play – THE SEARCH FOR THE STARS! 

This year’s production was a take on the infamous talent audition reality shows, and based on American Idol! There were “very rich producers” thinking about making the audition program successful, and the multi-talented “judges” ‘Tun Simon, Dato Randy, Datin Paula and even Mr Seacrest that were to choose the winner of the day. The “judges” had to go through a variety of auditions that included art and multimedia, music and movement, public speaking, sports and athletics, and “dan lain-lain” (others) talent. It was fun to watch all the kids demonstrate their strengths and talents in each video! Everyone was amazing and it was impossible to choose a winner. The “judges” had a lengthy discussion between them and after some time, they came up with a decision. The winner for The Search for the Star was announced; it was – EVERYONE! 

With that, we then commenced the kids award ceremony – a special, proud moment of celebration and honour for each of the children and their families. The awards were to acknowledge and appreciate their efforts in overcoming various challenges and struggles, while striving for success in life. Given the obstacles our kiddos have to go through in life, we want to be able to provide that space, the experience of being a winner, to be celebrated and to be loved.

The EAP team then surprised the audience with a flash mob finale and also presented Long Service Awards to team members who had served for 3 years, 5 years, 7 years and 10 years long! Congratulations to everyone receiving awards!

Here are some fun facts about 2022 Family Day!

• The EAP team started planning for this Family Day production in January 2022 – it is a large- scale effort that took a lot of planning and careful consideration. 
• 70 of our kiddos participated in the video and practised hard for their scenes – a team effort to ensure all our kiddos have a space to shine!
• There were more than 360 videos taken to make this play possible.
• All the footage were taken by our dedicated team of EAP therapists and by some of the parents themselves! Thank you for all your support!

For us, Family Day is to celebrate our kiddos, as well as their family, for the hard work and effort put in to achieve every milestone, revealing their strengths, talents and skills. We want to emphasise that within each child, there is a winner. We also want to celebrate the families that had been such a precious support to each of our kiddo. All parents that do the most to ensure that their children get the best, who have nothing but best wishes and hope for their kids, they too are stars. We were humbled by their sacrifices, hardwork and love.

We sincerely thank all the parties involved in the production, for making this year’s Family Day a successful one! 

“Like stars are to the sky, so are the children to our world. they deserve to shine!” 

– Chinonye J. Chidolue