<There's one child>
Six month has passed since the dawn of 2016.
We would like to ponder about the meaning of our
social cooperative organization through the story of one child from our center.
There's one child.
He was born into a multicultural as well as a North
Korean refugee family. His parents seemed to have a hard time adjusting to our
South Korean society, so they were not able to take good care of their child
and their family was in bad circumstances.
When we first met him, he had difficulty adapting to his kindergarten environment. He ate food
only by his hands, refusing to use spoons or chopsticks, and his only method of
communication was through yelling, screaming, or hitting another child.
We offered
this child <sand play therapy>. When he got better mentally and
emotionally, he started to learn Hangeul and participated in art class program,
and later, he also started to learn
the piano at our Saturday School sessions.
Then he moved to the country following his mother
who had to move there to provide for her family. After 2 years, he returned to
Seoul early this year.
His grandmother seriously asked us to provide
therapy for this child since his condition got worse after he entered
elementary school in the countryside. His grandmother told us that he had to
undergo rough times when he entered elementary school, an environment where
nobody tried to help him, and he returned to the initial stage of his mental
illness. This child would say that he missed our ‘Happy Move’ volunteers who
used to play with him.
So since this January we carried out both
individual therapy sessions and group art therapy, which is conducted every
Saturday morning. Of course, he met our ‘Happy Move’ volunteers again. On top of this, he received textbooks and
exercise books for this first semester from one of our Saturday School
volunteer teachers, and one of our supporter families sent this child loads of
clothes and shoes.
After he got
well again with the help of art therapy, his performance improved at the Saturday School Program (Piano lesson, Art class, and school learning).
So starting from April, he proceeded to learn the
violin for 10 weeks. And last week, he went skating for the first time in his
life with ‘Happy Move’ volunteers.
Now, we have decided to try a new project starting from this month. After our art therapy sessions are finished, we are planning
to begin <Exercise mentoring>. We would like to encourage our children to
gain more confidence, relieve their stress, and learn some necessary manners as
they exercise with our university student volunteers every week. We have
already started our first lesson!!
Note: We are now raising funds for our summer
vacation trip to Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul Arts Center, ‘Anthony Browne
Exhibition.’ Please become a sponsor of this upcoming event so that our
children could see this world-famous artist’s works. We have a total of
30children and we also need tickets for our volunteers and mothers as well. And
we are also in need of weekday volunteers who could help us take our children
to the museum. Thank you once more for all of your support~!
We appreciate all supporters and volunteers who
make our work possible. Thank you.