Information about the Healing Arms Project
Aim and Content of the Project
The Healing Arms Project helps children from infant homes ease their emotional deprivation and open their hearts to joy and spontaneity through therapy sessions (music therapy, art therapy, canis-therapy, hippo therapy and a Little Clown). The target group is abandoned, emotionally deprived children from institutional care, who are frequently abused or are mentally or physically disabled.
Therapies and healing activities will be introduced in children's homes from November 2009 to October 2010. Two children's homes (The Children Home in Milovice and the Regional Institution for Infants in Karlovy Vary) will participate in the project in that period.
Broader Context; Situation Before the Beginning of the Project
The Czech Republic is among countries with the highest number of children placed in institutional care. Unfortunately, the state is not able to provide supplementary family care to all children in peril; instead, it places children threatened by their own families into institutional care which jeopardizes children by its impersonalized regime. The fact that children's basic emotional needs are not sufficiently satisfied for an adequate period of time leads to their emotional deprivation. For four years we have been trying to reduce such emotional deprivation through therapies and healing activities, with success. We have found out from our existing activities (feedback from children, children's homes, heads of children's homes and volunteers) that children immediately and permanently benefit from such activities. At present, therapies are, however, offered only as help from outside. A systematic emotional care of such children is missing; the same is true with the interest of institutional care and public awareness of the fact that this is a possibility of how to directly and immediately help children if the state is not capable of providing a family environment for them. A person emotionally matures during this most vulnerable period (up to five years of age).
The content of the project
Children who live in typical infant homes or children centres have only small chance to get in touch with animals in comparison with children living in families.
We have decided to enable children living in infant homes or children centres to meet horses.
Horses and deprived children have lots of things in common and that is why they can give a lot to each other. Horses are animals that if are afraid of something will not fight but run. The deprived children who live in children homes behave in the same way. Children who were frequently abused, mentally or physically, need time to make contact with people because owing to their experience they do not trust them.
These children do not have such bad experience with horses so it is much easier for them to get in touch with such animals. Children can be more natural and often feel more secure with horses rather than with people. The horses are specially trained for working with children, they accept them the way they are and do not judge them according to their experience (horses are not able to change their behaviour intentionally, for example feel sorry for them).
Our Project is not really about therapy, it is more about small children from the environment of children homes having contact with such big beautiful animals, it is the HEALING CONTACT WITH HORSES. Children who will not be with a horse at that point, will create something with our volunteers. They will look together through pictures and photographs of horses, draw horses with stencils, make collages from pictures of horses, read stories about horses, how they live, what they eat, how they spend their day, how they communicate with each other, story about horses, tell how people should take care of horses to make them happy. All additional activities include natural human contact of volunteers with children; this has been proved well in the Open Arms Project.
Children's heart longs for creating and for participation in creative activities as much as possible. The MUSIC THERAPY serves this purpose. Through story children enter an unknown country, learn how to listen, feel and discover life of the country around which they travel through dancing, language, songs and music and by this way they travel all around the planet … in their magic train of creativity and fantasy they go through countries and life of Africa, Middle East countries, India, Slavonic countries, America … but not only this … during their journey they get to know themselves particularly.
All this happens thanks to work with rhythm, movement, voice, various musical instruments, yoga positions, art and folk rhetoric. Music, dancing, fairy tales and stories of many countries then become „General language“, which has chance to cross all borders, not only cultural. The Music Therapy is provided by our professional music therapist Ms Bohdana T. Hybšová and her programme Eufonie (www.eufonie.org). Thanks to the Healing Arms Project children also visit a farm. In the farm children meet animals, learn how they live, their kinds and needs. They will see horses, sheep, goats with kids, cows, pigs, ostriches, donkeys, poultry, peacocks, dogs, cats and many more.
CANISTHERAPY is generally a very famous and a very efficient method of help. It helps developing the emotional qualities of children… Caressing the dogs satisfies their need of tenderness; the therapist talks to the child and explains him that even the dog can be sad, happy or ill, and if the child takes a good care of him and loves him, the dog will make a good friend for him. The terapist encourages the child to communicate with the dog in order to decrease shyness and withdrawnness of the child and thus to support the spontaneity of his relationships with other people. While approaching new things, the presence of the animal helps the child reduce unjustified fear and retain his attention. Whithin the group therapy the dog playes the role of the child´s ally in managing the communication with and the behaviour in the group. Canistherapy also supports the development of intellectual and locomotive powers of children. We can bring canistherapy to the children thanks to canistherapy teams provided by Dibaq a.s. company (http://www.dibaq.cz/ ).
The art therapy and Small Clown are the follow-ups of our previous activities.
How to Participate in the Healing Arms Project as a Volunteer
The requirements are identical with the requirements for the Open Arms Project (see section How to Help). A volunteer is required to undergo an interview and training. He will apply to the Project by sending this Questionnaire to the email address petra.milsimerova@provazek.org.
Sponsors
Clifford
Chance Foundation (London)
- Ján Lehet
