Helping wards from Hope for Children Shelters to express their emotional world through Dance Movement Therapy

Andrey & Julia Dashin’s Foundation strongly believes in the therapeutic impact of music in our lives. Children, with their sincerity and innocence, have an amazing connection to the world of feelings and sensations, and therefore can express their inner world through music and dance performance in an astounding way.

Dashin’s Foundation is proud to sponsor year-long classes of Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) for kids living in the Shelters of Hope for Children CRC Policy Center in Nicosia. The classes take place in Children’s House and Homes for Hope and have started this September, lasting until June 2021.The challenging experiences that the children have been exposed to and endured have marked them emotionally and mentally, often hindering their development and positive progression in life. The DMT sessions are focused on movement behavior through guided sessions.

Dance movement therapist, Andria Papanicolaou, described the process as:

«A journey of returning home to the only stable home, our body. A space of safety for reconnecting with forgotten parts of ourselves such as creativity and the capacity for positive interaction which all help revive the desire to move. Movement is life».

Joseph Borghese, Director General of Hope for Children CRC Policy Center, highlighted:

«We thank Dashin’s Foundation for supporting the children of Hope for Children. Initiatives enhancing children’s health and wellbeing helped our professionals to provide an environment for children to develop and interact among peers. It is proved that Dance therapy programs have actually helped children to overcome difficulties and develop their intellectual, emotional, and motor functions».

We are heartened to know that the Foundation’s sponsorship of the DMT program is beneficial in supporting the children’s mental and emotional health and well-being, especially because many of them have traumatic past experiences. It’s wonderful to be able to help the children build a new quality experience, one where they and their therapist engage in an empathic creative process using body movement and dance to assist the integration of emotional, cognitive, physical, social, and spiritual aspects of self.