In Yangon, Myanmar, we contacted the NGO World Child Cancer. It is dedicated to providing resources to the oncology facility of Children Hospital of Yangon. They are dedicated to improving the conditions of patients suffering cancer, and provide minimal education to the children while they are admitted in the hospital.

After communicating by email, we met our contact person, Mr. Tung, a very nice and smiling guy who is in charge of directing the teaching team! We met in a cafeteria next to the hospital to specify details. After the meeting, he took us to visit the plant and the school. This is the largest hospital for children in all of Myanmar, and the conditions were pretty basic. We could see the Oncology plant, with the chemotherapy room and the recovery room.

The school is a room next to the mentioned unit, with books and material as a classroom. It is opened every working day from 13 to 15 hours. On the wall hungs the list of subjects that the children work on the week, with some days dedicated for drawing and artistic expression, in addtion to other subjects. So it was prepared for us to share with them some exercises of theatre and expression for them to do with the children.

At night Tung confirmed that we could do the workshop for the teachers, but due to a flu pass it would not be possible to work with the children. Due to the chemotherapy the children have a very low immune system, so if there is a case of the flu they can no longer join them as a group, they would be exposed to contagion and it would be very dangerous for them. They could not even attend to the school on these days … A pity, although better to prevent.

And… the day of the workshop arrived!! We took the train and headed to the hospital. Once there, they were waiting at the door of the building to accompany us to the school room. Tung was already there and introduced us to the seven members of the group, teacher and social workers, aged between 27 and 55 years, approx … all women, and Tung.

The younger girls looked sharp, eager to start, curious to see what we were going to show them, while the older ones were quite rigid, we suppose that they were shy, like asking themselves, what are these clowns going to make us do? … hehehehe …

The room was prepared as if we were going to give a theoretical symposium on child protection, a table with two chairs for the lecturers and chairs for the public … hahaha … So we started, and the first thing we said was to remove chairs and tables and put them aside … I think the older ones were even more scared …

The objective of the workshop was to provide teachers with tools to do artistic activities with the children, but first they had to do the activities to know how well the mechanism, the difficulties and the variety of possible results … hahaha … They were shy…

Let´s start !!! First, a presentation to start getting to know each other, they were all very shy !!! and sometimes they were very rigid … And once we all met, we started the exercises, from the beginning, and we gradually increased the difficulty … it was very funny!

With the time they were getting relax, having a great time !!!! After the warm-up exercises, we went on to make small interpretations.

You would expect to be complicated because they were timid … but it was amazing … hahaha … what a laugh !!!! They were very brave and we enjoyed a lot!! … we have not laughed so much in any workshop so far … crying !!!

We were all parting … all the time, until the end. We shared a few exercises with the whole team … an amazing team!

The farewell was emotional, they thanked us for showing them another way of teaching, another way of approaching people, of getting people closer to themselves, and above all so that children spend some time traveling through their imagination and the one of the others. The faces of them were clear and sincere, did not need more words or translations, those clear smiles were telling us … What a great team! We hope to see you again … Thanks!

In addition, Tung asked us to accompany him to dinner that night, and since we had a lot of connection, we accepted! He invited us all night to dinner and a few beers while talked about life and Myanmar … Interesting guys,,, Thank you Tung! Keep in touch!!!