C4C’s Dr. Clown initiative has stepped into a new era of clowning at the Kolín Regional Hospital. It is here where the team is implementing Dr. Clown’s new pilot project: “Children 4 Ever”. C4C’s co-founder, Rafael J. Wojas, and his partner Martina Včelišová act here as a perfectly balanced and coordinated clown team – in a challenging and new environment.
Since autumn 2018 the Dr. Clown team at the Kolin Hospital doesn’t confine their tried and proven “Smile Therapy” only to children’s wards anymore, but has also been visiting older people, many of them lonely and forlorn and often without any visitation – in stark contrast to the children’s wards.
People, who are often seriously ill and sometimes without much hope of returning home. People, who know that their next journey may lead them, for example, into permanent health care or the hospice. Many of them are tied to their bed permanently. This is a place where Dr. Clown now gives out smiles, plays guitar and sings songs with the hospitalized seniors, listening to memories from their youth, chatting with them, playing with brick boxes, supporting them with games tailored to help them with their memory and motor skills – or just simply read them stories or messages.
Whatever makes them happy and whatever they want – Dr. Clown is there to please. And it’s like our seniors are becoming children again. After such visits, the hospital carries an incredible amount of good mood and satisfaction – in conditions where you would hardly expect it. One has to see it almost to believe how the inner happiness of these senior patients reflects in their eyes after a visit by the Dr. Clown team.
With the experiences gained from Kolin Hospital, the team is looking forward to expand “Children 4 Ever” to other hospitals where Dr. Clown is active in the Czech Republic.
Martina Pupcsiková a Zuzana Šrámková
