Cartoons on the wards

Approximately 700 children between the ages of 5 and 17, of whom 109 on the pediatric, orthopedic, trauma, pediatric surgery, children’s neuropsychiatric, oncohematology and otolaryngology wards of the Children’s Hospital in Brescia; along with approximately 300 relatives and friends of the child patients; 20 teachers and educators from the hospital and schools; 15 doctors and medical staff from the wards.

AVISCO has been running cartoon production workshops for children hospitalized (LINK cartonianimatiincorsia.org) in the pediatric, orthopedic, trauma, pediatric surgery, children’s neuropsychiatric, oncohematology and otolaryngology wards of the Children’s Hospital in Brescia since 2012. Using a nursery rhyme, a comic book or a melody as a stimulus, the children pick a little story, a character or a phrase as the subject of their cartoon, which they produce by using strips of colored paper, clay or sand which is set inside a box that is connected to particular technological instrumentation. The children can also create a soundtrack to go along with their cartoons by recording music and their voices. This engaging activity favors socialization and well being, helping to give substance and voice to a child’s internal world also through the use of new technology. The project also foresees showing these ward cartoon movies, giving young patients the chance to see cartoons of a high artistic and educational level. The workshop offers children and their families the opportunity to experience their hospital stay in a fun and educational manner while they are being treated. At the end of the workshop the professionals invite the children and their families to an exhibition day, during which the cartoons created by the children are shown and their authors are given a DVD collection of their work.

Musicians, poets and writers donate content, often unpublished, to the children for use in their cartoons. Since 2016, the project created a bridge between the children in hospital and their classmates thanks to a written competition entitled “Cartoons from the classroom to the hospital wards”, in the schools frequented by the young patients, enabling the children in the hospital to use material contributed by their classmates as stimulus for their cartoons.

In 2017, the project foresaw the training of volunteers in order to develop and grow Cartoons in the wards.

In 2018 the project foresees the addition of a sound workshop to enable the young patients to create and record the sound tracks for their cartoons.

AVISCO – Scholastic Audio-visuals