As someone once said, “Laughter is the best medicine”. Well I can assure you that this statement was proven true by a visit from a clown to Heaven’s Nest last Friday. Heaven’s Nest is a place of care for abandoned, abused and neglected children- a place for them to be loved and nurtured whilst appropriate foster care is found for them.
The children at Heaven’s Nest are just like any others; they like to play, sing, dance and use their imaginations. When children have experienced trauma or abuse, the ability for them to do these child-like things gets taken away from them. Clowns Without Borders South Africa aims to bring laughter and play back into the lives of children, stimulating their imaginations and letting “children be children again”.
Clowns Without Borders South Africa was founded in 2004 and is an artist-led humanitarian organisation dedicated to improving the psychosocial condition of children and communities in areas of crisis through laughter and play. Through their work they also aim to raise societal awareness of conditions in these areas. They have implemented interventions all through the country as well as in Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana and others.
The children at Heaven’s Nest laughed and clapped as the visiting clown drove an imaginary taxi to Wynberg, chatted to his talking shoe and made a scarf disappear and then appear again out of children’s ears. They had to use their imaginations pretending to throw different sized balls to each other and learnt a few songs to sing and dance to. The children had a great time (and so did the adults!) – thank you to Clowns Without Borders for sharing your smiles and laughter with us, it really is such a fantastic method of healing.
For more information on Clowns Without Borders check out their website: http://www.cwbsa.org/