International Children's Day, 2006
The children at the RCCH had a real holiday on June 1. Some came to the festivities that took place at the conference hall of the hospital, but guests also came to departments where the most gravely ill children receive their treatment (Departments of Oncology, Kidney and Marrow Transplantation, both Departments of Oncohematology) and visited children in wards.
The children watched an incredibly funny child show prepared by actors from the Students' Theater of Moscow State University and listened to musicians and DJs from the best known radio stations of Moscow. The children got personally acquainted with their favorite singers and even sang some hits together with the actors and with popular singer Sergei Lazarev.
But festive events are rare. Ordinary hospital life is sometimes very sad and boring for the children. Our main aim is to make these days useful and interesting, full of creative work. During the last year, our numerous friends have enabled us to organize constant work of psychologists and art therapists with the most gravely ill patients. Experience gained at the Kidney Transplantation Center has clearly shown the wonderful therapeutic effect of such art lessons. Recently art therapists have also started regular work at the Departments of Oncology and Oncohematology. The new group works under the guidance of Vlada Novikova, music therapist and head of a charity foundation.
Two new playrooms are open for the children's creative work, for their rest and games. These rooms have been reconstructed and equipped at the Departments of Oncology and Kidney Transplantation thanks to our sponsors. Both playrooms were our present to the children for the International Children's Day of 2006.
The playroom at the Department of Oncology is a large, spacious, and well-lit room. For many years, its huge windows had been not only the source of light but rather the source of cold and wind because of holes and slits in the window frames. Old and deformed linoleum on the floor, paint peeling off the walls, wet spots on the ceiling had not only looked ugly but also presented potential sources of fungal infections. We are grateful to the Moscow Representative Office of Walt Disney Co., whose financial support made it possible to reconstruct everything in this room. Now the old window-frames have been replaced by well-fitting plastic ones, the walls and the floor are covered with contemporary environmentally safe materials, and a company producing stretch ceilings (its managers wanted to stay anonymous) made and installed a wonderful starred-sky ceiling for the children free of charge. The interior design was performed by Vera, our volunteer and a professional designer.
The room has comfortable workplaces for the children, who now have a computer with an LCD monitor, a large LCD TV set, a digital video camera, and a DVD karaoke system. This is necessary not only for recreation and entertainment but mostly for lessons with art therapists. Also, these setups make it possible to record and study breathing exercises and other necessary movements. But, at the same time, very little kids feel fine in this playroom, too.
The playroom at the Kidney Transplantation Center, mostly used by elder children and adolescents, has become a real art studio. Art therapists Irina Kolosova and Olga Gorneva engage the children in drawing and molding classes. The children now have new easels and a real potter's wheel for making ceramic articles. And there is also a LCD TV set and a video camera, which allow the children to see themselves and each other during the classes and to make video clips, which are also important for art therapy.
We want to thank everybody whose help has made it possible to reconstruct these two playrooms into real centers for creative work. We whole-heartedly thank Armen Popov and his Russian and American friends. We are grateful to the Nadezhda detei (Children's Hope) foundation and, as we have already said, to the Moscow representative office of Walt Disney Co., which donated the money for reconstructing the playroom at the Department of Oncology and thus launched the entire event.
Both playrooms have been functioning for over a week, and children just do not want to leave them. Art therapy classes have already begun at the Department of Oncology and continue at the Kidney Transplantation Center.
Here are some photographs of the festivities at the hospital and of the new playrooms. To see any full-size photograph, click the mouse button on the corresponding preview picture.
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