I got my Art Theraphy Group Leader degree and I jumped into the deep water. I undertook an Art Therapist job in a SEN vocational secondary shcool. I worked 2 or 3 member-team in double hours in a same time.
In the theraphy for the art-part I chose the Animation, especially the stop-motion. Nowday everybody has got smartphones, doesn’t matter how poor or rich they are. To take pictures or make videos is part of our life so they can feel comfortable themself with the technique. In the stop-motion technique almost everything possible, so easy to make it personal. You can draw, -move objects, -be an actor/actress, it’s working.
Because of the personal rights I can’t show you the movies. But I can tell you my biggest success:
I had a group with three 15 years old girls. They have several different problems but the common point was the body image disturbances. One of the girl came from a tradicional gypsy family. That means her life mission is to become a wife and mother when her family find the perfect husband for her. She didn’t have any problem with this. But she had a lot of problem with herself. So it seemed to me to try to keep her in school is quite useless energy, but help for her to learn how can she love more herself is possible. She was wearing lot of, strong make up all the time because she thought she is too ugly. Make up could hides this weakness, she said. In her mind if she is ugly, she couldn’t be a good wife and she will brings shame on her family.
We made several, different make-up animations with them. It was really good for the others problems as well. And of course we talked a lot. The gypsy girl was mostly responsible for the makeups. She pretty good at it. The others were of the same oppinion. But she never appeared in the movies.
In the last class she said for me, she is ready. Then she was sitting in front of the camera and washed away her makeup. She was ready to appear in pictures without any makeup. And later on she was ready to show the movie from her to the whole school. From that point she still wore makeup, but just the little, natural ones like almost every women.
one of the inspiration movie for them
More from the group of targets:
The compulsory edutacion is up to 16 years old in Hungary. We have a couple of schools which are ready for the integration and we have specail schools for disabled people. The ‘rest’ have to got to these type of shcools. But who are the rest? Basically children and youngsters with mild intellectual disabilities and/or with mental retardations. The profession gave them F70 code. In the real life, everyone gets there who can’t stay anymore in a normal school but who younger than 16: truants, who had a police case, who has anger managment problems, who has serious illnesses, so he/she has to spend lot time in a hospital and so he/she falls behind the others in a normal school. It causes really mixed student groups and lot of problems.
Lot of youths left the school when they are become 16. Because they want to go to work and be an adults, or because they are just not like to learn anything, or they will have a child or they are not feel themself comfortable between the other students etc. The family background is very influential. But without any qualifications the life is really hard in Hungary. So my most important task was to try to keep the potentional school leavers in the institution. Next to them I got couple of youths who were to quite, maybe oppressed in the class. And I could be a substitute teacher in the textile department as well.
Flora O. Hartyandi 