Project "Art Therapy"

9-10 months - this is how long an inpatient course of treatment for a child being ill with acute lymphoblastic leukemia lasts on average, if there are no serious sequels. And almost all this time the child with his mother is being in the hospital department. The condition worsens periodically, the body reacts to the heavy effect of chemotherapy with weakness, pain and nausea. You can walk very rarely, wearing a mask, trying not to communicate with peers on the playground. Children spend almost a year being closed in hospitals, without friends, classmates, with an almost complete absence of contact with the outside world.
There is noquestion of the possibility of studying directly in a hospital in our country, although abroad everything happens exactly like this: during treatment, children study and engage in creativity. And if it is quite difficult to organize a school at the hospital, then volunteers conduct creative classes in some departments.
Volunteer team of Charitable Foundation "Pomogaem" weekly visits the Department of Reconstructive Surgery with beds for cancer patients of the Regional Children's Clinical Hospital of Dnipro. Sometimes we visit other departments of hospitals where there is a need for art therapy. We teach the patients how to draw, model, do quilling and appliqué. Toddlers, teenagers, patients with good wellbeing and those, who have just gotten up after surgery, with catheters and even with droppers – they all are being involved into art therapy. An activity of art therapy is not only an opportunity for them to draw, plunge into the world of colors and shapes, develop fine motor skills, but also communicate with new people, meet neighbors in the hospital department and play with them.

Problems to be solved by the project:

lack of educational and creative activities in children's hospitals, primarily in departments where children undergo long-term treatment;
limited contacts with the outside world, which negatively affects the psyche of children.

Project objective:

organization of creative classes in children's medical institutions.

Aims of the art therapy:

give children the opportunity to express emotions through creativity;
create a background for the emergence of positive emotions that contribute to recovery;
facilitate the treatment process;
develop creativity and increase self-esteem;
expand the circle of people with whom children come into contact;
to facilitate acquaintance and communication of patients of the department with each other.

To join our team, write to info@pomogaem.com.ua, indicating the subject of the letter "Art Therapy", or call: 056 732 48 09, 067 632 69 19, 050 480 09 05.

The project is constantly in need of art materials. Paper, glu e, high-quality plasticine, cardboard, oil pastel crayons - we will be very grateful for all this! To clarify the most pressing needs - call the numbers above. You can bring materials to the office of the Charitable Foundation "Pomogaem" on the street. Troitskaya, 3a on weekdays from 9.00 to 18.00