Child Play International

Juego y Vida is an organization of Argentina citizens which maintains play and activity programs in the children's wards of Buenos Aires public hospitals.

The Juego y Vida playrooms, with their dedicated professional staff. are oases of cheerfulness, normal childhood activity and learning in Me sad, anxious world of sick children. This program is unique in Latin America.

Children may be in hospital for weeks or even months, sometimes with diseases caused or aggravated by poverty. poor hygiene and malnutrition. They may have to come back to the hospital repeatedly. But even if they are there for only a few days they must endure worry, discomfort. pain, and treatments they don't understand, in a strange place with none of4he-intirnacy of horne@ Some must face permanent impairments or even death;

Even when they have serious illnesses hospitalized children canl bear to spend the whole time lying in bed with nothing to do. Of course it is much easier for them if their mothers or fathers are there, as they usually are in Argentine hospitals, but then both children and parents need help to deal with their worries and to pass the long days without getting depressed. Mothers m ust sometimes leave to attend to their other children or to work.

The playroom provides a pleasant place with creative materials and things to play with, where the children can again relax and feel in control. There they find attentive adults who are skilled at calming their anxieties and stimulating their minds. They find a chance such as they may never have had before to learn personal and social skills. Their parents are exposed to new ways of helping children learn, and keeping thorn healthy. Being in hospital can even become a positive experience, instead of pure misery and fear. The children are In better emotional control, and recuperate faster. Those with preventable illnesses are less likely to got sick again.

The workers in the playrooms are psychologists who have taken a particular interest In this kind of hospital work, and have been selected as being well qualified for it. All of them except the playroom coordinators work as volunteers. Since Juego y Vida has been in existence, the hospital play program work is coming to be recognized-as--a-new-specialty. They-are calling it 'ludoterapia'. Often the psychologists are asked to describe at conferences in Argentina and in neighbouring countries the techniques they use for helping sick children benefit from therapeutic play in spite of their illness and anxiety.