On December 22, the Korean Cultural Center held a 'K-Pop Academy Graduation' event for students from the Child Protection Center, Down syndrome children, and their families. More than 200 people were at the event, which featured performances by students of the 'K-pop Academy' organized by the Korean Cultural Center from 20th to 22nd December. H.E. Park Yong-min, the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea in Thailand participated in encouraging students and giving awards to outstanding performance teams. The participating teams include 40 students from the Idol Department, Silpakorn University, 10 students from the Pattaya Human Help Network Child Protection Center, and 10 students from a Down Syndrome dance team 'The Stars'.

The event started with an opening talk about K-Pop by Professor Kevin Yoon, Lecturer at K-Pop Academy and the K-Pop Department at Howon University, a vocal trainer for YG Entertainment. With his teaching assistants Ahn Ki-hyun, Lee Joo-young, and Jo Min-hyuk, K-pop students at Howon University taught the choreography to Riize's song 'Siren'. After that, Professor Kevin went on the stage and taught a history of K-pop and singing techniques. Ambassador Park was welcomed to the stage and performed Kim Beom-soo's ‘I Miss You’ and received advice from Professor Kevin.

On this day, the students were divided into teams of 5 to 6 and showed off their singing and dancing skills to various K-Pop songs and 10 students from the Pattaya Human Help Network Child Protection Center received huge applause for their dance performance to the song 'I Like That' by SISTAR.

Before announcing the results from 4th to 1st place, Ambassador Park said, “As a judge who has to give scores. I don't want to turn your hard work and training into numbers at all. Each judge may have a different ranking in their mind. Therefore, every student is number one.”
Then, when 'The Stars', a Down Syndrome cover dance team, took the stage to perform a special performance. All the students were excited, sang along, and danced together to 2NE1's 'I'm the Best' and PSY's 'That That' after all the student’s performance. After that, everyone enjoyed the Korean food prepared by the Korean Cultural Center and ended the event by sending encouragement and congratulating each other.

The Cultural Center will continue to encourage all Thai youth’s passion to learn about K-pop and Korean culture regardless of their language or disability.