The vision of our Foundation, based on the Caribbean island of Dominica, is to offer children the opportunity to express their emotions and tell their story with the help of creativity.
Feelings are very often hard to put into words. We aim to let the children experience that creativity can help them to cope better with their current and future circumstances. Being creative in whatever shape or form can be an outlet and builds resilience at the same time.
Besides natural disasters, children in Dominica often experience poverty, neglect and worse, abuse and domestic violence. And even though our program does not necessarily change those circumstances, we hope it does change the way they can deal with it. As well as the way they look at it and maybe later in life make better choices.
We strive to offer a safe and inspiring place where children are seen and heard and where a warm and healthy meal is always available.
Our focus is on primary school age. Due to the frequent occurrence of storms and hurricanes, the schools focus on education. When hit by a natural disaster, the schools suffer because the buildings are used as shelters.
Too many children grow up in dysfunctional homes or challenging circumstances. If there is hardly enough money to buy food, that certainly leaves no funds for (exploring) creativity.
Our pilot program has shown that we can still make a difference with the limited means we currently have. Some of the children are very slowly coming out of their shells or are asking less negative attention in class.