20 June 2006 16:50

Future Healthy Life

The Ukraine 3000 Foundation supports the Wave of Life arts project and a hospital forum for merging education and healthcare.

The Wave of Life - 2 project is aimed at applying art therapy to children with cancer at the Lomonosov Institute Children’s Department. Art therapy includes various kinds of fine arts: decorative and miniature painting (dishes, cutting boards, painted wooden eggs, etc), ceramics (modeling on woodenware and framed fiberboard), painting on paper. The experience of the previous Wave of Life project proved how valuable are psychological support and creative work. Children will be able to make handmade souvenirs and gifts for various holidays.

The 6-hours classes are held at the children’s department of the hospital two or three times a week during five months. They are conducted by the ART-Selo [Art Village] Youth Public Organization, founded in June 2004 and managed by Olena Hudzenko. Major directions of its work are artistic education and activities among the youth. The organization actively participates in social life, conducting children’s art exhibitions and contests. Oblast children’s exhibitions are conducted on annual basis, where children from Zhytomyr oblast present their creative work. The exhibition dedicated to Chornobyl is still displayed in Japan. Numerous charitable actions during these exhibitions help to raise funds for socially unprotected children. The latest action was held at the Kyiv Monastery of the Caves in December 2005.

Fine arts present a unique means of communication, comprehensible to everyone. The artists from the ART-Selo worked out an exclusive model for training courses, combining the academic school in painting with applied arts, involving innovative educational techniques. This model along with new teaching methods allow to reveal the students’ creative potential and their abilities for various kinds of fine arts, helping them to prove themselves in a rather short term.