Twice a week we visit an institution in Rijeka (either a hospital, handicapped center, senior citizens’ home, orphanage, etc.) dressed up as clowns, in order to sing and cheer people up. This project also allows local young people to participate, who would like to experience volunteer work.
We’ve received many favorable reactions from the patients and the doctors, who are all of the opinion that this simple project improves the general state of physical and psychological health of the patients. The main hospital in our city, KBC—Rijeka, conducted a poll on the reactions of patients and staff to clown therapy and the results have been very positive. Here is what the doctor overseeing the project said at one of our seminars:
The “smile therapy” really helps patients, just like the poll that we conducted showed. The patients answered that the clown program evokes in them positive emotions: happiness, contentment, good will, increases their feeling of peace and tranquility, helps them to bear the time of hospital treatment easier, and alleviates their fears and feeling of illness. For that reason we, the doctors, together with our chief, intend to continue our cooperation with the volunteers from “The Family—For a better world.”
Originally Published in 2008.