So Much Inspiration for This Work
The most incredible thing about the conference this year was that it actually happened in person! The first moments of being with everyone in the Fokker Terminal were quite emotional. It was a bit unsettling that no one was wearing masks, and I think we all kept looking around trying to decide if we should wear them. In the end, people did what made them feel most comfortable and I have not heard of any Covid clusters from that week, so it must have been the right amount of protection.
I said yes to every opportunity that came along with this conference; so I was quite busy. I had the privilege to do two presentations with colleagues from our programs in the states. The first was with Dr. Raymond Quigley, a pediatric nephrology specialist who was responsible for helping us develop our Camp John Marc partnership. The second was with Jill Koss who is the former President of the National Child Life Council and Director of Family Support Services at Cook Children’s Hospital in Ft. Worth, TX. We presented about how to create sustainable partnerships between clown programs and host facilities. Each presentation was a success in attendance and relevance.
Additionally, I sat on two panels that were both very powerful. The first was “Pandemic Solutions and New Ways to Look at the Work”. We heard from Dr. Clown’s Melissa Holland, Patrick Van den Boom from Norway, me, and Renata Kalivod & Marianna Milovska from Dr. Klaun in Latvia. Our pandemic solutions were all innovative and creative, but when the Latvia team spoke it became something else. They had just returned from a refugee camp at the Ukraine border where they went not really knowing what to expect. The stories they told about the traumatized children and families they served there, and how they felt they were able to uplift them and help them experience lightness and humor again were so intense. It made me want to do all we can to support this effort. In fact, there was much discussion at the conference about how to mobilize all our organizations to reach more crisis situations and refugees around the globe. Christopher Bailey, our keynote speaker who is with the World Health Organization, is ready to help clowns find more traction in these areas.
The other panel I had a chance to speak on was about NAFHCO - who we are and what our mission is. It was really the first time for some folks to hear about this organization so that was very exciting.
All the sessions were terrific, and it was great to see people I’ve only met on Zoom, to be in the presence of so many people who are passionate about the same things I am passionate about. On the first day, they had someone who was billed as doing Stand Up Poetry. I really had no idea what to expect, but she sat all day in the middle of the main room and observed. She listened to what was being said and sat in on a few sessions. At the end of the day, she stood up and did a twenty-minute stand up set where she used poetry to describe all kinds of aspects of our conference. It was so moving. There were tears from the audience and tears from her as well. I loved it.
And whenever things got too serious, we were treated to a musical interlude from a clown band made up of some of the Cliniclowns from Holland. They were hilarious. All in all, there was a perfect mix of comedy and heartfelt emotion, and I left with such strong feelings of inspiration for this work. I cannot wait to take this energy and put it to work here at home!