59-05-032 Proceeding

334 Proceedings of the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Congress a play is about the relationship between doctors and their young patients. Actors are the patients themselves. This is to help the children to feel less anxious about meeting their doctors over a long period of time. In 2011, the hospital and the online newspaper Education jointly organized Hope Classroom, which aimed to help child patients to lead happy lives and forget about their suffering. The size of the classroom was not stable because of the children coming and going. The children were of different ages. However, all of them actively participated in drawing or music activities. It was common to see children coming to the classroom with hypodermic needles still on their hands. A child who spent more than a month in the hospital for his treatment would regularly visit this classroom to learn how to draw and fold paper flowers. Because of this, he would miss his school and friends less and become much less afraid when seeing a doctor coming towards him. He would not cry when having an injection. Many of the drawings by the children were hung in the classroom. Some of the children who had to drop schooling due to their prolonged stay in the hospital were very happy when taking classes in this room. They learned how to write, read, draw and sing as if they were at school. Many of them said they would take their prescriptions and would behave when having injections so they could recover, go home and go back to school with their friends. There were cases when children visited the class one day and died a few days later. However, as a matter of fact, art therapy proves to be an extremely important way to help the patient live longer and in joy and happiness. Othermental institutions inVietnamwhich apply art therapy, mainly drawing and coloring, include the First Central Mental Hospital, Hue Mental Hospital, Da Nang Mental Hospital and KhanhHoaMental Hospital. HueMental Hospital, the Second Central Mental Hospital and some other mental institutions also use music therapy although their doctors and psychologists have taught themselves such therapies rather than being formally trained in them. In addition to the above-mentioned hospitals which use art therapy in diagnosis and treatment, mention should be made of projects bringing art to disabled children and those with sight impairment as a therapy for their psychological issues including inferiority complex and in order to help them feel optimistic and confident about themselves. Take, for example, the volunteer project which teaches drawing to children affected by the Agent Orange and living in Peace Village, Thanh Xuan, Hanoi and the project Art Beyond the Sight at Nguyen Dinh Chieu School in Hanoi. In about 1999, some students at Hanoi Fine Arts University, now Vietnam University of Fine Arts, enthusiastically worked as volunteers in the drawing project benefiting disabled children in Peace Village. Most of the children were mentally challenged due to the consequences of the Agent Orange. Some of them could not take care of themselves. Others could never hear or speak like normal kids. Drawing would help them improve their health, agility and some other basic skills. The village was not really large enough for them to live or play. Its physical facilities were seriously insufficient. In such a context, projects such as those on drawing and music really brought smiles on the children’s faces andmade themmore confident about themselves. Although the project people were not experts on art therapy, they managed to use art as an effective therapy for the children’s disabilities.