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News from our Coordinator in Slovakia |
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Bratislava, December 8, 2009
From January until July we have done around 70 hours of entertainment. Children had a happy afternoon with the shows of magicians, pantomime, puppet play, music, painting etc. During the summer months we continued to visit the oncology departments. The children with cancer stay hospitalized for long periods of time, sometimes for months in a row. Mothers asked us to continue with entertainment during the holiday time. The artists went on a regular basis, around 3 times a week, to do artistic work with the children and bring some distraction (21 hours).
Since September we organized every week a performance where all children of Kramare hospital were invited. Thursday afternoons have been very special by the shows of all sorts of artists:
Juraj Bencik, a professional pantomime actor did his piece of the Pirate and the parrot. This week a will start a new piece with another actor. We are all very excited!
Two actresses with on the piano Kuni Soma from Japan prepared fairytales. In one of the fairytales 3 disabled children were playing the main roles! This was a very special event.
Our African drummer Thierry had the kids and staff dancing around his tam-tam again. Very exotic and heartwarming.
We have invited The Old School Brothers, professional break dancers and winners of the ´Slovakia has talent´ show. Around 80 children were watching the spectacle and trying themselves to do the moonwalk. Even TV came to film.
A professional puppet player Olga Hoffmanova, joined Smiling Hospitals Fund and will play all sorts of pieces. The children love it!
In November we had an exciting historical fencing show with a part of the Ursus group.
Magic shows are always very popular. Ivan Lucanic, Peter Sestak, Jaroslav Seman and Martin Kucerak are magicians who are working frequently and with lots of success in the hospital with Smiling Hospitals Fund. The children love their shows, the amazing tricks and it is a good laugh too.
We reach a lot of children at the moment with the performances for the all departments. But we still want to go to some of the departments and have some individual artwork with children individually or in small groups We hope to continue this with some of our artists going to the oncology departments on a regular basis.
We were asked by the hospital to also start our activities in other hospitals in Bratislava and we hope to do so soon in Antolska Hospital.
After many years as expatriate, I go back with my family to the Netherlands in December. I am very sad to leave Smiling Hospitals Fund behind me but luckily a good team is taking over and with no doubt they will carry on.
Anna Lemmens |
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