BoldCaT @ Bodhisila

By Keith Tye, Lim Seok Binn & Priscilla Ho - BOLD Team

Background:

       The Bodhisila is a charitable Organisation founded in 1988 under the inspiration and guidance of His Holiness GHD.
Apart from religious activities, Bodhisila runs an Orphanage catering for boys and girls, their ages ranging from 6 years to 20 years. The orphanage admits children who are orphaned, children who are poor and needy.

The cost of maintaining the Bodhi-sila has increased tremendously during the past few years and the Executive Council of Bodhi-sila is doing its best to meet the expenses from donations and contributions received from members and from public of all communities. The Ministry of Welfare Services, Malaysia is also partially subsidizing the Orphanage.

The younger children who are 7years old to 17 years old attend the nearby school. Besides education, the children learn traditional music and dancing at the TFA, NGOs like WA, SB and others come by the orphanage to support the children in learning capability, craft work and also yoga.

Currently there are 50 children both boys and girls age from 6 to 17 years old residing in the home. There are 6 houseparent running shift looking at the welfare of the children.  Observing Spirituality is a key factor here; every evening children dressed up in their prayer attire and have group prayers in the Temple. Group prayers were also observed before meals. Children are seated in rows with the boys in front and the girls behind in the dining area.

“He who has faith has everything, and he who lacks it lacks everything. It is faith in the name of the Lord that works wonders; faith is life and doubt is death."             

      ~The Founder's words.

History of BOLD’s Outreach to Bodhi-sila: 

 On September 18 to October 23 2008 an informal creative arts play group was initiated in Bodhi-sila  as requested by the Management to help the social, psychological and emotional need of the children. A playroom was set up and a total of 5 sessions were held over this period with one staff participating alongside with the 10 boys age 9-10yrs old.

Sessions were carefully planned with the aim to help children to acquire good social skills as a start. The therapeutic space was identified using a newly set up play room which was about 280sq feet.

As a result of the pilot program, in March 19, 2009 a new group was initiated again, unfortunately we did not complete the 8 sessions as planned as 4 children were discharged after the 6^th session. 5 of the children in the same group continued into another Bold project DaD, which focus on inclusion and creative body movements. There were 23 sessions with a public performance on 14 June 2008 in a local college.

The 3^rd group was initiated on August 6 to September 24 2009. Aim at increasing the opportunity in enhancing the psychological, emotional and social needs of children to give themselves the voice, not challenging but developmental. 10 children; 6 girls and 4 boys age 10 – 12 years old were selected for this eight week program. The coming together, focusing the energy and discovering the creativity within, helped them further to promote growth. The creative group met every Thursday for 90 minutes to learn from one another. One staff continued to be in the group learning alongside with the children. We learn best when we are doing it.  

Todate  24 children age between 9years old to 12 years old benefitted from BOLD’s outreach work. 

 Bold’s short term and long term plans:

Over the short term period Creative arts group work will continue for the children.

 For the year 2010, BOLD will look at the possibility of a big sister and big brother creative arts program for the older children age 16 – 18 years old.

Another program is to review the possibility of a creative parenting module for the 6 supervisors/matron with the aim to Re-establish trust with children+ adults +environment and to balance their own psychological emotional and social needs thus preventing burnt out.

This may served as an ongoing training program by BOLD to the community in education and psychosocial help.     

Report on BOLDcat @ Bodhi-sila

 Aim:

To ascertain what are the psychological, emotional and social needs of children growing up in the ashrama.

Objective:

·       To explore the use of creative arts in identifying the psychological, emotional and social needs of children growing up in the Ashrama.

·       To provide opportunity for children to vocalize, to give voice to their developmental, psychological and emotional needs (validated not challenge)

·       To Identify similar shared common needs; that they are not alone

Assessment:

SDQ on each child were taken from the supervisor/matron and the 10 children themselves.

Overall score ranged from 2-22 from the supervisor/matron and 2-24 from the children. Purpose of the assessment gave a brief background of how the children felt about themselves as compared to the carers: their strength and difficulties.

Activities selected:

Activities were selected carefully to cover 3 areas: warmer, main development and closure. There was a fixed opening ritual of Namastate, where children took turn to lead; kneeling in a humble bow, the forehead touching the ground; “putting the ego on the ground and wishing one another well”. The closing ritual was on journaling, where children drew and wrote their feelings in their book.

Sessions Aims:

The  aims over the 8 sessions covers:

-   Trust

-   Safety

-   Respect

-   Creativity 

Intended outcome:

Using creative arts therapy, children were able to express their feelings, articulate indirectly & create an atmosphere of safety and trust.

Overall comments:

A special Final session 8:

The 4 facilitators had a big surprise from the 10 children. They had actually prepared a 30 minutes session involving their whole team, all the 10 children. Am and Sv were the ‘MCs’ with their opening speech in English then repeated in BM: “Welcome to our orphanage and very Thankful for teach us Good Things… (Sv) Salam sejahtera kami menguchapkan terima kasih kepada…. “

A poetry recitation on 10 Little Monkeys… had the whole team laughing.  There was a fashion show and 3 Indian dances being performed. Even Lo the youngest girl in the group did a solo, all dressed up. Then came the appreciation for the facilitators, each of us were given a little gift and 2 were hand made by them. There were also moments of regressed and arguments among one another.  SV, a 12 year old boy always wanted to lead the group, and had inconsistent attendance. He came earlier for the final session and was the co-MC of the children’s program. He came back after the session ended to talk to the facilitators on his wishes…

Thoughts and Feelings:

 One team member trying to cheer up another in his journal…”don’t be sad my dear brother”.

Demonstrated the care and concern.

It was a great learning experience to run a play group, especially with the incorporation of using the drama therapy format from Alex which helped us to look at each game in depth, why it was chosen and the psychology behind it. Activities selected for the 7 weeks covered building trust, safety, respect and creativity.

Opportunity to act out and use their capacity in creativity: taking on roles with no qualms.

Children enjoyed the most acting in the different role: batman, spiderman, Michael Jackson, fairy, deva…

Attendance was at 73/80 over the 8 sessions. Punctuality was a concern initially and subsequently improved.  At the end of the 8 sessions it is noticeable that we have achieve the intent of the therapeutic group work and achieve some level of Self Awareness on oneself.

Follow-up Plan:

A quarterly follow-up plan on the group is recommended, with a 1 session creative arts groupwork in January 2010.