Reflections
Children who are seriously ill and live in hospitals end up living only one reality: the reality of their illness; everything moves around it.
Suddenly one day their life has drastically changed, their house is now a hospital and everybody talks about illnesses and medicines and their new friends are all sick children like them.
 But the worst thing is the sadness and sorrow they pick up from their own families who are, of course, very worried about them.
These fears have a great deal of influence on children, reinforcing their state of disease instead of helping them to recover.
Bearing in mind the influence that parents’ worries and fears have on their sick children we designed this project.
We want to bring a different perspective to their situation, a perspective where children, parents and doctors all become active in the process of healing through a theatrical experience with the play Reflections and a series of workshops.
Synopsis
of the play “Reflections”
 The play centres on a group of children between the ages of 8 and 14, one of whom has a long-term serious illness. An elderly grandfather plays a key part.
The child has been confined to hospital for some time and has to deal with the artificiality of her situation. No-one behaves normally around her and she is sensitive to the anxiety communicated by her family.
She struggles with their pain and fear and during her time in hospital
has lost all sense of who she is. She feels helpless and disempowered.
She has in effect, "became her illness" and this has impacted on the healing process.
The play deals with the way her family eventually confront their own attitudes and fears and how her own behaviour reflects theirs. The process allows her to re-discover her inner strength and zest for life which contributes to her recovery.
She is no longer just her illness.
The Workshops
 The workshops are designed to be flexible depending on the particular circumstances but might include – Sensory Experiences, Emotional Balance and Well-being, Clowns, Bio-dancing and Art.
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