This year’s AWWA Family Service Centre (FSC) Annual Gathering was held on 25 and 26 November 2017 at D’resort @Downtown East. The programme was broken up into two segments – the inaugural Family and Children Retreat and the Dinner.
It is said that the more time you spend together as a family, the better chance of sharing quality experiences. With many clients not being able to spend time with their family because of work and other commitments, AWWA FSC identified the retreat as a platform to encourage regular quality family time and to also provide respite from usual day-to-day activities and stressors.
To kick off the retreat and to pump up the adrenalin, families had to find specific areas to take a wefie as a family and bring them back to the station master within 15 minutes in the game “Adventure Quest”. There were about 8 other different game stations like cheering as a family, dressing a family member up as a superhero that suits their character, “My Family Treasure” where families could design their own scrapbook and write their shared goals as a family.
By lunch time, most of them were famished. Delicious bento sets were given out and families ate together at the Begonia ballroom.
Everyone was looking forward to the Dinner and Awards Ceremony themed “Celebrating our Achievements: Together We Paint a Community”. This year, awardees were assessed based on their completion of an educational stage like primary level, secondary and tertiary level. They were also assessed based on their achievement in the social domain meaning their ability to overcome difficulties, significant improvement in behavior or competency be it as a parent, student or child. What was done differently this year was that there was more than just one awardee in each category giving more families something to celebrate amidst their struggles or challenges they are facing. This also encourages families to celebrate together and feel proud of their family member.
The different categories this year were:
- Rising Star Award (Child and Youth Category)
- Rising Star Award (Adult Category)
- Young Star Award (Child and Youth Category)
- Superstar Award (Adult Category)
The second day of the retreat was free and easy, families were able to spend their time together at “Wild Wild Wet” before making their way back home. When asked what their favourite activity was at the end of the retreat, the family activity at the game stations was ranked the top.
To find out more about what AWWA FSC does, please click here.
If you’d like to support and help families in need, donate or volunteer at AWWA.