AUDABIAC

AUDABIAC

Helping Children Dream

The civic association Audabiac was inspired by Radana and Jiří Wald, who wanted to help out the children in children’s institutions. Unable of course to adopt them all, they created the project 'Art for Freedom' inviting other families to participate, among them the Bedel de Bouzareingues family from Paris and the Voves family from Prague. Together they gave the project clear contours and brought it to life. In doing so they changed the lives of themselves, the children in the institutions, and the many other people who took part in this extensive project.

''For children to develop well, be healthy, self-confident, and useful to society, they must come to as little harm as possible. They should live in the kind of family surroundings that provide the necessary stimuli, appropriately varied and diverse, corresponding to their stage of development. These stimuli, together with the surrounding environment, should create for children a meaningful world permeated with love in the family and free of feelings of insecurity, anxiety or danger. In the harmonious surroundings of the family children should form their first and most important emotional bonds, and they should gain the important feeling that they mean something to others around them. This is a positive identity, the awareness of one’s own self and one’s own worth. For good development it is also necessary to respect the child’s need to have an open future, meaning being able to look forward to or expect something. All of these needs of children should be and are fulfilled when children live together with those to whom they belong and who belong to them. When any of these needs are not met, it’s bad,'' says children's doctor of mental health Professor Zdenek Matejcek.

The children in the children's homes have injured souls, and the project "Art for Freedom" tries to assist their counsellors at the children’s homes to heal them.

Such emotional wounds can remain hidden in the subconscious for one’s entire life, and are often the basis of a negative attitude to the world in general, to other people, and to oneself. This is the consequence of evil inflicted upon children by their own parents. Children can succumb to such evil, but by nature they have the capacity to resist evil and, in confronting it, gain certain things that are otherwise unattainable. They must, however, have conditions that favour their natural requirements, and they must also have a strong and free will of their own.

The project 'Art for Freedom' exists precisely to create these conditions. Over the holidays the children are joined by artists who lead a children’s art workshop. These artists help to develop the children’s creative talents and capabilities, while at the same time bringing the children into contact with the artist’s work. The children are surrounded by pictures, sculptures, photographs, music, dance, and everything that makes art art.

In the words of Swedish pedagogue Frans Carlgren, it is clear what the artists’ workshops are meant to achieve. It’s not meant to produce 'children’s art', nor is it an effort to give more sophisticated entertainment to children in their free time, nor to discover in them hidden talents that will serve them in their adulthood: this could be achieved a lot more conveniently in any case. Instead, the kids’ artistic activities under this project serve them in even deeper ways. Whether working with wood or modelling clay into the form of some animal, drawing or painting, struggling with the material to achieve the desired result, when decisiveness and patience combine to produce a picture, what we’re experiencing is the full engagement of the personality. To bring harmony to the softness of clay, nuance to the lyricism of choral singing or the playing of an instrument, requires persistence and the ability to practise tirelessly. Crises and disasters in rehearsing a long play – or backstage, painting scenery or sewing costumes – these are tests of endurance, and the beautiful experiences of common communal life. And what satisfaction when applause rewards great labors, and confirms the artist happy in his work.

All of this artistic labour and effort is an exercise of the will. There is no better training of the will than to practise something over and over again with joy, despite obstacles and difficulties.

Many of the tasks given to children in the art workshops require them to take a personal approach, which they are not readily capable of. The cautious may be asked to become brave, and the conceited considerate; those of feeble will may discover perseverance, and the headstrong might find the ability to adapt. This method of education has deep and lasting effects.

Summer and year-round work with children has another effect, which lies in the cultivation of their creative imagination. Again, educator Carlgren speaks quite clearly of its importance for personal freedom when he calls creative imagination one of the most important internal abilities adults have at their disposal.

We all need imagination in our daily lives. The life of a person without imagination is determined by others. This person is unfree. For the kids from the children’s homes, and for others as well, the best protection against dependency of every kind is an education in freedom.

After completing basic education and attending secondary or trade school, the children from the children’s institutions do not have great chances to make good in a dignified and appropriate manner. Growing up in a children’s home marks one in the eyes of society, which is usually unprepared to look beyond that label.

Leaving nothing to chance, efforts are made for the first two years after completing training to find them a job suited to their capabilities at one of the participating businesses. Young people leaving the children’s institution should not have to struggle with the problems of finding appropriate employment and basic housing. It is precisely these conditions that drive some of them, under the pressure of social uncertainty and carrying subconscious emotional scars since early childhood, down a path that complicates their lives and those of the people around them. For these two first difficult years, young people have the support of the association in seeking employment and paying for housing. Employees of the firms that are the long-term main financial donors supporting the activities of the association are in constant contact with the kids, so the future entry of these young people into the firm as regular employees takes place without serious interpersonal problems.

In the near future the association will be the owner of small apartments to be provided for a limited period to young people leaving the children’s institutions. Few are aware that these people start out life with practically nothing. Meanwhile, inexpensive housing is usually found only in places where there’s no work.

For three years the founders searched for a place, a place with just the right atmosphere and beautiful, inspiring surroundings. At the end of their search they found the castle of Audabiac in the Provence region of southern France near Avignon. Until it was bought by the Audabiac Society it belonged to a single family. This has left it a special atmosphere and the tradition of being a home. The structure, however, was in a very dilapidated state, and so the first worry was renovation. This finished in June 2002, and in July the first children from two institutions in the Czech Republic arrived in Audabiac, now to return every year during the holidays. The medieval fort has now become a fortress of their childhood and youth, where they are among people who care for them, live with them, and empathize with their difficult plight.

Part of the castle is an old stone barn, carefully converted to a multi-purpose space, where exhibitions, plays, concerts and other social activities are held.

In 2002 Audabiac and its programme 'Art for Freedom' became part of the 'Czech-French Cultural Season in France', under the auspices of the Presidents of both countries, Václav Havel and Jacques Chirac. The stone barn has hosted most of the cultural activities as part of important international meetings, attended, of course, by the kids from the homes.

Last year as well, the season for the kids revolved around meeting the Czech artists and their work. The 'Czech Culture Season 2003 in Audabiac', during which their works were shown, drew keen interest from both French journalists and the public.

Any such non-governmental, non-profit activity anywhere in the world involves a difficult search for funds. At the beginning the civic association Audabiac received a large financial donation from the Czech pharmaceutical company MUCOS Pharma CZ, s.r.o. This year and last year, this sponsorship covered the cost of the children’s stay and travel, the operation of the 'art workshop', and the organization of the cultural part of the project not only for the children but for the French public as well.

At this time the association is renewing its search for funds for the upcoming year. Again it will be necessary to find sponsors for taking the kids to France, and covering the cost of their stay there, and for setting up the art workshops, as well as for the usual things necessary for kids’ summer holidays.

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[ Published: 2004-04-29  |  Visitors: 11733 ]