The Necklace of Bravery for the kids in Okhmatdyt

We have launched a pilot project “The Necklace of Bravery” for the patients of one of the departments of the National Children’s Specialized Hospital “Okhmatdyt” with the financial help of the charity organization “International Women’s Club of Kyiv”.

It is important for the little ones to see that they are strong, and due to their strength and doctors’ actions they will be able to get better. The documented history of illness is for adults, and the children get a colorful necklace! In this necklace each bead has its meaning and tells a story about the victory over a virus, bacteria, pain, and fear.

The number of beads tells us about the number of procedures, injections, tests, operations, and other manipulations that the child had to go through to recover. This is a tangible story of the marathon for health and the victory over illness. The necklace of bravery is a personal story of each young patient: it is an illustration of the path that the child goes through every day during weeks and months of treatment.
This is how it all happens. Hospital psychologists from the Center for Medical-Psychological and Social-Rehabilitation Care hold therapeutic meetings with children, using beads of bravery to concentrate the attention of young patients on their achievements during treatment, teach them to value the moment, and believe in their strength and recovery.

The children together with the psychologist build their necklace of bravery, where each individual bead represents a certain procedure that they had to go through on the way to recovery, such as punctures, injections, or changing of bandages. Among those beads there are also those that represent the pleasant moments experienced in the hospital, such as birthdays or the day of discharge. This way the children create unique necklaces since the duration of treatment and the number of medical procedures are different for everyone. The necklace of bravery is a tangible story about the victory, an artifact that represents superpowers, and a chronicle of recovery.

We are sure that the Necklace of bravery will add more to the superpowers and will help the little patients understand that they are marching towards their recovery!