August 2022 – Moving Child receives award

Moving Child receives an award for long-standing social commitment

This summer, Moving Child received a special honour. The organisation “Friends Without A Border” (FWAB) honoured Moving Child foundress and managing directors Anna Schulz-Dornburg and Gertraud Leimstättner for their decades of commitment and dedication to children in need and especially for their support of the Lao Friends Hospital for Children (LFHC) in Luang Prabang.

As part of the 2nd International Virtual Gala of the FWAB, Ms. Schulz-Dornburg and Ms. Leimstättner received this beautiful award for their long-standing and dedicated commitment to supporting financially and socially disadvantaged children all over the world.

Moving Child was founded in 2010 with the aim of supporting babies, children and adolescents who lack access to important resources such as basic health care, school education and training or creative and body work. Since the start of the foundation, more than 30 projects have been funded by Moving Child. These include exciting and diverse projects such as the support of orphans in Nepal (Hands with Hands e.V.), the trauma workshop of an international Montessori school (Campus di Monaco) and supporting the Child-Life Specialists (Care-For-Rare Foundation) in Munich.

After two long years, Moving Child was finally able to visit the Lao Friends Hospital for Children in Laos in person this spring. Despite the extreme stress caused by the Corona Pandemic, the hospital has developed wonderfully. The medical training program was continued partly digitally and partly in person during this difficult time. This way the program stayed focused on the development of the independence of the Laotian doctors. Managing directors Schulz-Dornburg and Leimstättner were also able to get to know the new hospital director personally and experience the exciting developments at the hospital first hand.

“The distinguishing feature of Moving Child is the close and very personal contact with the people and projects they support. FWAB can attest to this. Anna and Gertraud wandered into the Lao Friends Hospital for Children’s Visitor Center in early 2017 and have been so connected to both the hospital and Luang Prabang since that time. They have funded our thalassemia clinic, our neonatal clinic and funded our first four-year educational training program for paediatricians. They have thrown a fundraiser for the hospital and always provide support in any way they can. Moving Child is a very important part of the Lao Friends Hospital for Children. We are delighted to celebrate them.

All the great work at LFHC is not possible without generous support from you! We sincerely thank you.”

– Nicole Pagourgis (Executive Director FWAB)

On May 19th the award was presented by Kenro Izu, the founder of FWAB, at the Virtual Gala. The event was a great success, and a lot of donations were raised for the children’s hospital. A video of the evening can be found following this LINK. The Moving Child tribute is at time stamp 1:24:00 – 1:28:20.

If you would like to donate, you may do so directly at www.FWAB.org/donate.

May 2022 – Paulihof – Kinderhilfe gGmbH (children and animal welfare)

When we arrived at the Paulihof, we were greeted by a multitude of colourful impressions. In the house we met three dogs that couldn’t be more different in their behaviour. Shy, playful, daring; Each one unique in its own way. These first impressions characterised our entire stay: Each and every resident at the Paulihof is special, unique. This includes the many chickens, sheep, goats, donkeys, horses, and the many other animal residents as well as the children who have found their home on the Paulihof.

Paulihof – Kinderhilfe gGmbH (i.e., children’s aid company) is an educational-therapeutic residential group for traumatised children, which has its approach in curative education with animals. The Paulihof farm was founded over 17 years ago, was formerly part of the child protection agency in Munich, and has been an independent, non-profit company since 2020.

Up to 10 children are accommodated at the Paulihof at the same time. Some of these have had a long history in child protection and youth welfare. Many have had bad experiences, severe fears of attachment, and were “written off” by the system. Nothing of this was noticeable during our visit. At lunch, the children excitedly reported on their school life, discussed upcoming tasks, and exchanged hugs. However, it is obvious how much work and energy has gone into this development. A total of 14 supervisors work in shifts on the farm. Their tasks involve not only intensive childcare work, but also household chores, and, above all, farm work. The children are intensely involved in the animal care process on the farm and they each have a reference animal for which they are responsible. The work being done with the children and animals on this farm is very special and helps them to find the protection, security, and trust to be able to form new relationships. Animal-assisted education promotes physical, emotional, and social development and enables new experiences. The focus of the work being done on Paulihof is on building a relationship between humans and animals and transferring these experiences to dealings with other people.

Just like the children, the animals at the Paulihof have gone through a lot in their lives. They were often neglected, mistreated, and unwanted and in some cases they are severely traumatized. It is precisely this similarity in experience that the children can identify with particularly well. On the informative website of the Paulihof (www.paulihof.eu) you can find the sentence “Here, child and animal welfare come together.” and it couldn’t have been put into words in a more appropriate way. In the middle of this wonderful undertaking stands Ulrike Heigenmooser, who originally set up the project and has since run the Paulihof. During our visit, we immediately felt how much love and strength she puts into dealing with each and every Paulihof resident. Supported by her colleague and co-director of the farm, Sandra Sailer, the remedial teacher is committed to helping her protégés with heart and soul. Not always an easy undertaking, but always an incredibly rewarding one.

We were absolutely delighted after our visit to the Paulihof and are glad to be able to contribute to this great project with our support.

A short video (in German) about the Paulihof can also be found here: https://www.tvingolstadt.de/mediathek/44381/

March 2022 – Girls are kicking it! A project of the Munich-based Education and Culture Association

The Munich-based Education and Culture Association (BIKU e.V.) works mainly with freelance employees and has several different pillars. Among other things, the “A.PPLAUS” project, which offers inexpensive and exciting holiday courses such as theater, aerial silk or acrobatics. Moving Child’s attention was particularly drawn to the “Girls at the Ball” project last year. Under this title, BIKU e.V. organizes free football training with an integrative approach for girls with and without a migration background. This is where girls come together, interact and communicate through sport. “Mädchen an den Ball” is aimed at girls between the ages of 6 and 17, for whom there are often fewer extracurricular sports activities than for boys. Sport conveys new self-confidence and strengthens social and intercultural skills. The aim of the offer is to give girls the opportunity to interact free of gender constraints and role models and to cast off external expectations in the process.

What started as a small but very important idea in 2007 has now become a far-reaching offer. Every month up to 800 (!) Girls come together to play football at 8 locations in Munich. But it shouldn’t stay that way. The success of “Girls on the Ball” is making waves and by 2024 a total of 32 locations have asked to establish the project with them too. However, in order to guarantee the quality assurance of the project, “only” 6-8 new locations will be opened per year. Because “girls on the ball” is not just simple soccer training. All locations have their own dynamic that allows them to be adapted to the respective conditions and needs of the group. It is about combining the aspects of culture, sports and social education. But it is also a feminist work that aims to “make girls visible”, especially in male-dominated sports facilities.

It is important that everyone involved understands that the project is not just about inclusion, but also about emancipation. The soccer game also allows girls with physical, psychological, mental or language handicaps to playfully find a place in a safe and supportive group and all participants gain self-confidence through their game and the support of the group. The supervisors at all locations must internalize these background ideas and help to implement them. At each location there is therefore a permanent team of four consisting of a location manager, two coaches and a cultural educator: in. There are currently 24 coaches involved in the project, but the team is gradually getting reinforcements. Moving Child supports BIKU e.V., for example, by financing trainer training to strengthen staff at the sports fields.

In the long term, it would be conceivable and very nice if “Girls at the Ball” could establish itself throughout Germany and not only support girls directly, but also draw attention to the unequal representation of boys and girls in public spaces . In this context, a pilot project is initially planned in Augsburg, which will then hopefully also initiate the future nationwide opening of “girls to the ball”.