Our Friendship with the association Balta Scena

Back in 2005, when we met Mr. Bengt Nilsson from Sweden, we learned about the clowns who interact with sick children and permanently work in the hospitals, for the first time. Our loyal friend Bengt, with great enthusiasm, told us about the popular clown therapy in Sweden, and wished that the playful clowns could attend to the hospitalized Lithuanian children as well.

 

As years went by, we often discussed the demand of the social clowns and their training needs with the heads of charity funds in different countries. We were so glad to find out (in the news last autumn) that the clown therapy had finally made its first steps in Lithuania, and soon after the news broadcast we received a letter from Indrė Vileikaitė, the coordinator of the association Balta Scena, with a request to support this new and beautiful initiative, here. We invited them for a cup of tea, and during our conversation with the coordinators, Indrė and Viltautė, we realized that a very responsible and well-trained team of social clowns was coming to work in the hospitals of Lithuania! These young people had not only been trained to do clowning tricks and to improvise, but also to simulate the situations our children might experience in their hospital wards. Too, they had also received training in child psychology.

 

The endless love and children’s smiles have always been the two main goals of Rugutė, so we decided to share some of our funds with the social clowns with three goals in mind: 1) to help them expand the activity of the project Clowns Without Walls, 2) to ensure its continuity and development, and 3) to finance the training of new social clowns.

 

A short description of the project Clowns Without Walls:

 

Clown therapy is a popular type of art therapy, where clowning, improvisation, music, acrobatics and child psychology all merge together. Clown therapy has a specific methodology based on a long-term practice that enables one to approach children with communication difficulties and children who are socially excluded and psychologically challenged.

 

The basic principle of clown therapy is individual communication with the sick child and depending upon the age and condition of the child, the communication may be interactive or passive. The core of clown therapy, however, is not in the playing of physical games with a child, but how each clown uses the child’s fantasy and imagination to interact with the child from a psychological point of view. Social clowns attend children in wards, where, if at all possible, they try to spend time with each of the children individually. Clowns use juggling tricks, music, and different clowning elements to create a new, safer world around the child, to distract the children’s attention from their disease and pain, if only for a short while. …Results? Clown therapy is viewed by people in the pediatric community as an efficient type of art psychotherapy.

 

In the first stage of the project Clowns Without Walls 15 young Lithuanian performers participated in intense clown therapy training, taking 6 days. The training was led by professional actors, clowns from Germany, who have more than 10 years of clowning experience. Now, having gained the necessary skills, the social clowns visit the Children’s Hospital of Vilnius University and the Child Development Center every week.