Event celebrates first anniversary of OEP Day (with photos)

     The Social Welfare Department (SWD) today (November 4) held an event via live broadcast to celebrate the first anniversary of the Opportunities for the Elderly Project (OEP) Day. Three organisations were commended for their outstanding performance and active participation in OEP at the event.
 
     The first Thursday of November has been chosen as the OEP Day by the SWD since 2020. As some of the OEP projects (2020-2021) have been postponed to 2021-2022 owing to the pandemic situation, there is no OEP Award Presentation Ceremony this year. Instead, an event celebrating the first anniversary of the OEP Day was held to have fun with elderly persons and review the milestones of the OEP development over the past 23 years. Three elderly also shared their positive changes after participating in the OEP in the event.
 
     The event went in a physical way and was broadcast simultaneously via the OEP's Facebook page and YouTube channel. The SWD invited some 110 OEP participating organisations in various districts to host small scale celebration parties for about 4 000 elderly persons in their centres where they watched the live broadcast together. The Honorary OEP Ambassador, Anderson Junior, continued to serve as the master of ceremonies this year. He interacted with the elderly throughout the live broadcast.
 
     Giving a pre-recorded speech, the Director of Social Welfare, Mr Gordon Leung, encouraged the elderly to stay active to lead a fruitful life. He hailed the remarkable achievements of the OEP in which more than 3.7 million elderly people have benefited from about 6 300 subsidised district programmes since the OEP was launched 23 years ago.
 
     Delivering a pre-recorded message, the Chairman of the Elderly Commission, Dr Lam Ching-choi, recognised new elements, such as intergenerational harmony, neighbourhood support and information technology, have been added continuously to the OEP over the past decades to move with the times. The Chairman of the OEP Advisory Committee, Professor Diana Lee, said that she has learnt a lot of novel things from versatile elderly people and doing so has made her feel young. 

     The SWD presented three awards to the elderly service organisations in today's event to commend their continuous support to OEP. The Consecutive Participation Award was presented to Fong Chung Social Service Centre, which has participated in the OEP every year since the OEP was launched. The Active Participation Award went to Christian Family Service Centre – Shun On District Elderly Community Centre, which organised 28 OEP projects in the past years, ranking first among the participating organisations. The Outstanding Performance Award was presented to Tung Wah Group of Hospitals Wilson TS Wang District Elderly Community Centre, which has won four Hong Kong Best OEP Awards in the past decades. The elderly representatives of the awardees received the awards and shared their joy and happiness on the stage of the event.
 
     Through subsidising social service organisations, district organisations and educational institutes to carry out a wide range of activities, the OEP aims at providing various opportunities for elderly people to unleash their potential to contribute to the society and cultivate a sense of self-worthiness.
 
     For details of the OEP and an archived recording of today's event, please visit the OEP Facebook page (www.facebook.com/OpportunitiesForTheElderlyProject).