Soccorso Clown

 Florence     Italy

http://www.soccorsoclown.it     << visit website

Categories:  Medical, [ view all ]

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Soccorso Clown Charity Profile

Soccorso Clown’s hospital clowns are experienced and professional actors – not volunteers – who are rigorously trained to apply their special skills to the needs of chronically and critically ill children, found in hospitals around Italy.

The Soccorso Clown program promotes the proven health benefits of laughter and humor to hospitalized children while providing a powerful partner to traditional medical therapy, helping to reduce the stress, fear and isolation a child experiences when undergoing constant therapy and enduring intensive, often painful medical procedures.



Soccorso Clown’s specialties range from acting to music to magic, and help the child and his or her family face the illness with a positive attitude while improving the quality of life for the child and the extended community. The hospital clowns create an atmosphere of humor and relaxation, involving in their "games" both the families of the patients and the staff.

Applying a methodology modeled on that of the Clown Care Unit of New York’s Big Apple Circus, which has been operating in the United States for the last twenty years, Soccorso Clown introduces the natural components of laughter and entertainment into the otherwise daunting everyday life of seriously ill children and their families. The methods used by the hospital clowns are simple, yet effective. Most importantly, they are able to carry out their visits without intrusion to patient or medical staff. They are sensitive to the condition of the child at all times, and work with the child in collaboration with the medical teams in the hospital, to perform their very special brand of “magic”.

Only at the request and invitation of the child does a hospital clown enter the patient’s room. This is the only case and time during the child's hospital stay where he/she can decide what is “best for themselves”. This helps the child disassociate itself from the fear and pain brought about by their condition and usage of strong medicine. Appreciated by medical staff and therapists, a visit of the hospital clowns brings a few moments of joy and laughter, five times a week, forty-four weeks a year, directly to the bedsides of these critically or chronically ill young people; an escape from the dark and frightening world they are forced to live in.