Donbas children attend a master class on Easter egg painting
On the threshold of Easter DTEK Academy hosted a master class on Easter egg painting for internally displaced Donbas children, who had been earlier provided with psychological assistance from Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center.
"The classes with psychologists that completed the "War Trauma" course produced good results. Thanks to the Center's specialists, children and adults managed to reduce the expression of negative symptoms, and in some cases, completely get rid of insomnia, different fears, high level of anxiety, psychosomatic disorders and cope with difficulties when adapting to a new place", ‒ Marina Sorokina, Coordinator of Psychological service at Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center, shared.
The master class on Easter egg painting became one more bridge of return to peaceful life. Maryana Pruska, a 10-year-old craftsgirl from Kyiv, taught children how to make beautiful paintings on eggs. The girl is involved in art since early childhood, she goes to musical and art schools. Three years ago Maryana had discovered a technique of painting eggs with hot wax, and now she was happy to share the secret skills with her peers. Easter eggs painted with wax are called pysankas. This technique is very ancient and traditional for Ukraine. It allows creating both simple souvenirs and genuine artistic masterpieces.
"The initiative of Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center is very important for kids. Aside from the fact that they will have an Easter souvenir from this meeting, a joint work and creative exercises will help to take away the accumulated stress and give a chance to meet and hang out with their friends again", ‒ Marina Sorokina shares.
Along with children another class was held with their parents. They were offered an art therapy technique called 'Collaging'. Adults created collages by cutting out the photos and headlines from different magazines they liked the most and pasting them on a piece of drawing paper. As a result, everyone had their own map of wishes and hopes.
According to Coordinator of Psychological service at Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center, through this technique a person can get resources from the past, live "here and now" and dream. "This method is excellent for stabilizing psycho-emotional state and helps to plan the future", ‒ she believes.
Both children and parents were delighted with the master classes and art therapy session. They showed the results of their art to each other and shared the impressions.
"The events in Donbas and subsequent moving away from the war affected the psychological state of all our family members. Group classes with the Humanitarian Center's psychologist, attended by my daughter during the whole last year, helped her to cope with difficulties while adapting to a new place, ‒ Natalia, the mother of 8-year-old Masha from Donetsk, shared. – And today I would like to thank Rinat Akhmetov Humanitarian Center for the master class and art therapy. The impressions are amazing. My child and I are both so enthusiastic. There is a warm friendly environment here, which is quite difficult to find nowadays".
According to Coordinator of the Center's Psychological service, the value of this initiative is also in the fact that it helps to improve relations in family. "When children and parents come back home, they will be able to discuss these two hours, share their impressions, show their works, which is very important for family unification. And it is known that family is one of the most important resources to stabilize psychological state", ‒ Marina Sorokina says.
