5 year old Kazakhstan girl gets roundtrip win to dream country Malaysia

ASTANA: It's like a dream come true for a little Kazakhstan girl to visit one of her dream countries, Malaysia, after her mother wins a return flight ticket at the #MyButterflyEffect Treasure Hunt contest organised by the Malaysia Pavillion at the Astana EXPO 201(pix).
The lucky girl, Layan Yeren, 5, together with her mother, Zhanna Maguzumova, 40, took the prize of a roundtrip for two to Langkawi Island in Malaysia with a 3 day/2 night accommodation on the legendary island.
Zhanna who hails from Astana said her daughter had been dreaming of going to Malaysia since she was three years old, following their visit to the Malaysia Pavilion at Milan EXPO 2015 in Italy.
Since then, she said, Layan kept praying to God for the opportunity and was so thrilled after finding out about the Butterfly Hunt at the ongoing Astana EXPO in which Malaysia is participating.
"We have visited the Malaysia Pavilion 32 times already, and my daughter especially loves the butterflies on the clean energy beam inside the pavilion.
"When we came today (yesterday) we were so happy to find out about this Butterfly Hunt. That is why she was so excited to participate.
"I am thrilled, and still cannot believe that we won this dream prize!," she told Malaysian reporters after the prize giving ceremony last night.
The Butterfly Hunt was held to recognise Malaysia's achievement in winning the only Honourable Mention award for Best Interpretation of the EXPO 2017 Theme category by the prestigious US-based Exhibitor Magazine.
The Hunt sent EXPO visitors on a "worldwide" search for butterfly clues hidden at some of the other country pavilions that also received Exhibitor Magazine Awards.
Malaysia Pavilion Director, Michelle Lau Sook Yee, said the pavilion had much to celebrate as it was also among the top most visited pavilions and most active for business programmes at the expo.
Throughout the EXPO 2017, she said the Malaysia Pavilion had reached over 20 million people with #MyButterflyEffect conversations on Green Growth.
"We began EXPO 2017 with an intent to prove that an emerging market has inspired green growth around the world, which is why we started the social media conversation #MyButterflyEffect to help spread the ideas and inspiration emanating from EXPO 2017 to the world.
"We are extremely grateful for the support and winning the Honourable Mention simply inspired us to reward EXPO visitors for being part of these conversations.
"We wanted the public to have a fun and memorable time at the Malaysia Pavilion," she said.
Lau said there were so many great entries but they had to narrow it down to the five most inspiring and creative.
So not only did Zhanna creatively submit photos, she submitted a heartfelt and touching poem by her and her daughter about the EXPO and their journey bonding while finding these beautiful butterflies scattered all over the EXPO.
She said the Hunt drew a massive crowd to the Malaysia Pavilion during the competition day, with a whopping 14,000 visitations.
At the beginning of the EXPO, the Malaysia Pavilion saw an average daily visitations of 5,000 and this increased to 10,000 daily visitors in the past two weeks.
Malaysia's participation at EXPO 2017 in Astana, Kazakhstan is organised by the Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water, Malaysia and implemented by its agency, Malaysian Green Technology Corporation with the support of the Title Sponsor, Tenaga Nasional Bhd.
EXPO 2017, which began on June 10 will end tomorrow after three months.
A total of 115 countries took part in this bi-annual international specialised exhibition. — Bernama