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One Year Ago

9/27/2015

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One year ago Playing to Live! began. We cannot believe the amount of work, children and communities reached, and what has been conquered in a mere 365 days. We want to thank all the incredible volunteers, our clinical team, our partners in Liberia and South Africa, our board, and all the absolutely incredible people who have made this possible. The best way we know how to share with you about our incredible journey is to give you the break down of this last year:


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​September 27 2014

Alexis began our journey by developing the idea and laying the foundation for Playing to Live! and incorporated it as a non profit in response to the Ebola epidemic. 

She believed that the children in Liberia needed essential emotional support during the epidemic, and as an art therapist and past resident of Liberia, she knew that expressive art therapy would be the perfect tool for the Liberian community. 
​October 2014
​Jessi Hanson flew to Liberia and, through the connection of the Liberian Ministry of Health, she was invited into the isolation centers to train the female Ebola survivors in the center to utilize out pilot program with the children in 21 day isolation.

We were able to see a marked difference in the children and women of the isolation center. The children went from crying and not communicating  to playing and interacting with the other children in the center. 
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November & December 2014
​Playing to Live! built their clinical team of an art therapist, Alexis, a child life specialist, Cat, a yoga therapist, Kristin, and a play therapist, Rebekah. We also received many great volunteer hours from different people all over the country

We also built our wonderful board of directors. Our team was coming together. 

During this time we received some great coverage for the work we were doing in the New York Times, ABC, Chattanooga Free Press, Harvard, and Johnson City Press.  
January- March 2015 
Playing to Live! had received just shy of $2,000 in donations, but with $500/ month, we were able to hire 2 women to interact with almost 70 children 2-3 a week. The children were either orphaned from the epidemic or highly affected. 

Prisie and Jessica became the face of Playing to Live! in Liberia. We received weekly reports that the children were showing HUGE emotional improvements, and they would call our staff on days they couldn't make it asking why their aunties weren't coming.

We were quickly becoming an essential program for the support of the survivors of this terrible epidemic. 
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April- May 2015
Jessi, who had been already working in Liberia, started working more hours with Playing to Live! The clinical team began to really finalize our initial program and training, and we continued to support the team in Liberia. 

The question soon became, where do we go from here?
May 2015
Through a growing partnership with the Liberian NGO, RESH, UNICEF funded our program and training. 

So RESH and Playing to Live! began the 6 month grant, where we would soon hire 40 female Ebola survivors and by the end of November 2015, reach 850 highly affected children. 

We couldn't believe this huge growth!!
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June 2015
Alexis flew to South Africa to work on her doctoral field work. Through this work we partnered with a South African NGO, TLF. 

The Liberian UNICEF grant was in full swing, and Jessi and Alexis were reunited for a week in Monrovia. For the first time ever both founders, our Liberian team, and our Liberian partner were together!! 
July 2015
Our program in Liberia was continuing to grow!!

In South Africa Alexis and our wonderful liaison Megan trained 40 people in Playing to Live!'s program at TLF. The focus in South Africa being on children experiencing homelessness and urban poverty.

We implemented our program during their school holiday and reached over 80 children. Our theme was Creative Superheroes. 

The children were invited to explore their individual and group strengths through play, art, singing, and expression. 
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August 2015
The Creative Superheroes closed the first round of South African work, and Alexis and Kathryn, who joined Alexis for a few weeks, explored new and exciting opportunities, which we plan to develop over the next year 

Liberia continued to grow. We are in constant contact with our team in Liberia, and we are blown away by the stories we are receiving. 
And now and to the future:
We have grown exponentially throughout this year, and this is such a short snippet of what all has developed. We are looking into our second year of existence, and our excitement grows with ideas, opportunities, and continued need in high affected areas Africa and beyond. We also want to thank our special volunteer Laurel Morrison, who is in Liberia at this moment supporting the ending months of the RESH UNICEF grant. 

We cannot do this without you, and we ask you for your support. We have received so many requests for services and partnerships, but we are beyond capacity in terms of funds. In order to grow we need your support. Will you be our Creative Super Hero?
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Month 3

9/18/2015

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Jessi returned from Liberia and we were uncertain how Playing to Live! was going to continue. At this point we had raised $1,853, something we were so grateful for but unfortunately covered very little of the costs we needed to build our program. 

As we began to plan and build, we were honored and extremely grateful for the women in the ICC unit who continued our programming with the kids in isolation. We saw this as a HUGE step forward. If the people we were working with saw promise in our programming, enough to carry it on their own, we had created something that was necessary and sustainable. 

Back at home we began getting an influx of Peace Corp volunteers, who had been sent home due to the epidemic. Playing to Live! was really becoming something more than anything we had ever expected and we were thrilled. 
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Day 2 of 1 Year Celebration!

9/17/2015

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 In late September, I (Jessi Hanson) flew down at Alexis' request to help see how we could get play art therapy going to support children affected by Ebola. It was chilling to return to Liberia now affected and forever changed by Ebola. No one hugged, no shared food, and people were terrified to get sick. Ebola was a hidden death. With the help of old colleagues at ChildFund and the Ministry of Health, I was able to get permission to enter an Interim Care Center (ICC) for children in quarantine who had been exposed to Ebola. 

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 The caregivers learned the play and art activities that Alexis developed and we pilot tested, and changed to be more culturally appropriate for the children, with help from the Ministry of Gender and Ministry of Health officials. In total we helped over 30 children the month that I was there (as I was on leave from my standard job which was kind enough to let me volunteer in Liberia). The children were very sad and depressed most days, crying, acting up, not eating or having terrible flashbacks. I found one girl under a couch hiding, and she had peed herself. Another girl one day drew a string that represented the virus of Ebola (under a microscope) and said, "I have this inside me. I am going to die." It was hard work. It took the support and love of others, like Victoria Zaway, Charlene Davis, Janessa Wells, Katie Meyler, and M Holden Warren to help me get through each day. 



 It was the first ICC in the country, and children spent 21 days or more inside, not knowing what would happen to them, and way from family and friends. They were very affected by the trauma. Most were already orphaned by Ebola, seeing their parents' bodies carried away in a body bag in what they thought of as a perpetual sleep. I worked with the caregivers in the ICC, who were mostly female survivors of Ebola, like Decontee Davis and Helen who lost so many in their families, including their spouses/significant partners. They felt they wanted to give back in some way for having been spared in the Ebola Treatment Center (ETU) from dying. They cared full time for the children in the center, as their foster aunties- feeding, clothing, bathing, cleaning, and caring for them. This included two babies who eventually died of Ebola, so the trauma was still present and growing for them.

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 The strength of the caregivers was astonishing to me, and in 4 weeks I had new 'sisters'. We had bonded through the work, with what became a project " Playing to Live". The Ministry of Gender asked if we could consider making this into an organization that worked permanently in Liberia through the crisis. They were so happy with the work with the children. 


By the start of November, what was meant to be a small project turned into an official nonprofit organization! Alexis became the founder and I the co-founder. We would finalize our activity guide with the partners who had supported us. The vision and hope was set as Ebola still waned in the country. Our story was featured by Harvard University in two articles, including: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/10/life-in-quarantine/

In two months all of this happened. Return make to learn more about this adventure... 
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The Count Down to Our One Year Birthday

9/16/2015

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In 11 days we will be celebrating our one year Birthday, and boy are we excited!!

To prepare for this celebration we will spend the days leading up to it sharing stories from each month, so let us begin by how this all began. 
This video you see started IT ALL. I (Alexis Decosimo) had spent the summer of 2014 in frequent tears of helplessness watching a country I loved fall into the trauma of Ebola. Then I saw this video!

One of the most devastating parts of watching the Ebola epidemic unfold was knowing that, due to the community fear of  contracting Ebola, children were being left to grieve with little emotional support. Everyone was afraid of everyone and children were being orphaned and left without support. 

 As an art therapist, I saw this video as a beautiful reminder that, with the proper support, children are extremely resilient and expressive arts is an effective way of supporting their healing and resiliency.

I immediately called my comrade from my time in Liberia, Jessi Hanson, and told her we needed to find a way to bring expressive arts therapy programming to Liberia. By simply supporting communities to sing, dance, and play, we could provide ways to build resiliency and hope. 

Within a few days Jessi had a plane ticket to Liberia, and I was building ideas towards what this might look like. 

Stay tuned as our story continues.... 
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Playing to Live! on UP Worthy

9/7/2015

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Read about how we use yoga therapy, play therapy and art therapy techniques to help children in Ebola affected communities. 

We have been so excited to share with you a new article about Playing to Live! that has been written by the website UP worthy. UPworthy is a positive news website and has dedicated stories to show positive programs that have come through during the Ebola crisis. 

We are honored to be featured! We need your help to share our stories! We are thankful for all the support we continue to receive and continue to look for Creative Super Heroes to help us make a difference. 

READ IT HERE
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  • Home
  • About Us
    • Therapeutic Techniques
    • Partnerships
    • Funding Services
    • Media Statement & In the News
    • Annual Reports >
      • Annual Report 2016
      • Annual Report 2017
  • What We Do
    • Expert Consultants
  • Meet the Team
    • Core Team Members
    • Interns & Volunteers
    • Key Contributors
    • Board of Directors >
      • Board Bios
  • Finding the Helpers