A Very Good, Very Happy Day

This year marked our fifth annual Open Day, held for the families and friends of everyone in our Heartprint community.  It was a good day! 

The Centre was packed to the rafters with parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, supporters and partners, all there to celebrate the children and young people who make Heartprint such a special place. There was singing, dancing, acting, poetry, laughter and a whole bunch of proud family faces.

Open Day is one of the most anticipated events on our calendar. But that wasn’t always the case.

When we first started, Open Day was exactly that: an opportunity for families to come into the Centre, look around, see some of the children’s work and learn more about what happened here.  

At that time, most parents were not as involved in the Centre as they are now. Some were hesitant to come in, simply because it was unfamiliar. Open Day was a way to make the Centre feel welcoming and accessible, and to show families what their children were learning and experiencing.

Getting people through the door was not easy in those early years.  It was just … too new. Unfamiliar.  

The first Open Day was organised by Wendy, Garry and Natasha, who was then our program coordinator, largely because no one else knew what an Open Day was or what it could become.

Fast-forward to this year, and the transformation is extraordinary.

Wendy and Garry did not run the event at all. Our teachers took responsibility for the entire day, planning, coordinating and guiding a program that ran for more than three hours, with one performance following another. You had to be there, but the creativity, energy, excitement and love in the room was palpable.  We are still feeling rejuvenated and our kids, well, they never stop! 

That change says so much about the growth of Heartprint.

Rather than being a morning where families can come in and have a look around, Open Day is a celebration of what the children have learned, how much their confidence has grown and how willing they are to stand up and use their voices.

The majority of the songs, plays and poems are performed in English. There is plenty of dancing and fun, of course, but the performances also allow the children to demonstrate their speaking, musical, reading, writing and storytelling skills.

This year’s program included songs, dances and original poems.Some performances also carried important messages, including one about protecting the environment and the responsibility we all share to keep our communities clean.

The performances are entertaining, but there is often a deeper meaning behind them. Through stories, poems and plays, the children explore ideas about kindness, trust, perseverance, responsibility and learning from our mistakes.

One group shared an original poem called “Golden Time”:

Time changes people from bad to good,
but some people stay bad.
Some people don’t change.
They don’t learn from their mistakes.
They have bad stories stuck in their brains.

Some people become better slowly.
They learn new things day by day.
Even when people move slowly like a turtle,
they still try hard to climb the mountain
because they trust themselves.

Time is worth as much as gold.
If you waste it, you will regret it.

It was a powerful reflection on change, effort and the value of time—and a wonderful example of the ideas our young people are learning to express in English.

Perhaps one of the clearest signs of change this year came from our smallest performers.

In previous years, our Tiny Tots— only three years old—often had to be gently guided onto the stage. Once there, many would simply stand and stare out at the crowd, looking a little like deer caught in headlights.

Not this year.

This time, they marched proudly onto the stage under their own steam.

In one group, only two children were able to attend because the others were unavailable. That did not stop them. They performed their dance, with panache, we might add,  and finished looking extremely pleased with themselves.  Well, we were all pleased!

That confidence is something we see across all age groups.

The children are not only more willing to perform; their English skills have improved enormously. (This is vitally important in communities heavily reliant on tourism and international business.)  

Each year, a visiting writing group, Writing Through,  works with some of our students. One of the facilitators, Kristen, had not worked with our evening students for two or three years. After her first session back with them, her reaction was immediate: she could not believe how much they had improved.

On Open Day, she excitedly showed people examples of what the students had written several years ago compared with the work they were now presenting.

For those of us who see the children regularly, growth can sometimes happen so gradually that it is easy to miss just how far they have come. Seeing that progress through the eyes of someone returning after several years made it especially powerful.

This year was also different because more people from outside our immediate Heartprint community were able to attend.

Alongside families and local supporters, we welcomed board members from the United Kingdom and Australia, as well as several major sponsors and supporters from Australia.

They were able to see not only the finished performances, but also the hard work, preparation and teamwork behind them. They saw the children supporting one another, the teachers guiding the program and the families filling the Centre with encouragement and pride.

That may be the greatest evolution of Open Day.

What began as an effort to persuade families to step inside the Centre has become an event they actively look forward to. 

Open Day is now embraced by the entire Heartprint community. Correction:  It is a part of our community. When days sometimes seem long and challenges just too immense, we can look to all that Open Day represents and know without reservation:  This is why we do what we do. 

As we celebrate our young people finding their voices, we are also looking ahead to Silent September, our annual mental health fundraiser.

Each September, Heartprint staff, volunteers and supporters around the world commit to a period of silence in solidarity with people who cannot speak, are afraid to speak or have never been encouraged to believe that their voices matter.

Silent September supports our mental health programs and reminds us that being heard, feeling safe and having the confidence to express yourself are deeply connected to wellbeing.

We will share more very soon about how you can take part.

As always, thank you. 

Your Heartprint Team