Orchestra hits the right note with young patients
Print Edition
MUSICIANS from the Italian Philharmonic Orchestra and Amway Charity Foundation volunteers this week spent an afternoon with children from the Children’s Hospital of Shanghai as the 2014 “Love with Music” program draws to an end.
However, Amway programs are set to continue next year.
“Love with Music,” a charity program run jointly by Amway, the Shanghai Charity Foundation and the Children’s Hospital of Shanghai, was officially launched at the end of last year.
Under the scheme, volunteers visit sick children at the Children’s Hospital of Shanghai in Putuo District on a monthly basis to give them music lessons and play games.
Sometimes they would also bring along volunteers from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music to join them in music performances.
In 2015, “Love with Music” will also be included as a special program in the “Next Stop, community service” series of public service activities sponsored by the Shanghai Committee of the Communist Youth League of China.
On Monday, a group of Amway volunteers invited children and parents to join them singing and dancing in a flash mob in the lobby of the Putuo branch of the Children’s Hospital of Shanghai.
Later, they also visited the ward in the surgery department and invited 10 children to perform together with the Italian musicians.
Da Xu, an 11-year-old boy from Liaoning Province, said he couldn’t wait to go back to his hometown and tell his classmates about playing musical instruments with the volunteers.
A great pleasure
A little girl named Ping Ping also got the chance to perform “Little Star” on the flute along with the Italian musicians.
“I’ve learned a bit about playing the clarinet in elementary school and it’s such a great pleasure to play again in Shanghai,” she said.
So excited was the third-grade girl from neighboring Jiaxing City that she woke up at 4am on the day of the performance as she couldn’t wait to go to perform.
Niu Jun, director of the social workers’ office at the Children’s Hospital of Shanghai, said that the flash mob activity was fun for the young patients and their parents alike.
Young patients will have a better memory of the hospital through taking part in this kind of musical performance, instead of just seeing it as a place for getting prescriptions and taking pills, Niu explained.
The young patients were selected by nurses at the Children’s Hospital of Shanghai. They are all in a stable condition and are capable of giving short performances.
Amway recently also decided to pour an extra of 500,000 yuan (US$80,544) into next year’s charitable activities in collaboration with Shanghai Charitable Fund and the Shanghai Committee of the Communist Youth League of China.
Officials with Amway said the program may be expanded into communities and neighborhoods.
Amway’s charitable programs with the Children’s Hospital of Shanghai dated back several years ago when it first started to provide extra entertainment for children who are stuck in their wards and have little chance of interacting with the wider world outside.
They then developed a program that could use Amway volunteers’ musical skills to help relieve anxiety among little patients.
The Italian Philharmonic Orchestra will perform at the Shanghai Grand Theater on New Year’s Day to thank those who have contributed to city charitable causes over the past year.
Amway started to sponsor charity concerts to raise money in 2004 and since then 82 new year charitable concerts have been held in provinces such as Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian.
As much as 8.6 million yuan in donations have been raised through these concerts, said organizers.
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