By Elizabeth Wirth | Project Leader
As we prepare to bring to a close our first GlobalGiving crowfunding project, the entire Rosie's Rainbow Fund team would like to say a massive thank you to each and every one of our donors for their generosity and support in making this campaign a smashing success! Not only did we reach our fundraising goal of £3,008, but with your contributions we exceeded it and raised a fantastic £3,669 in total!
How are your donations helping?
The funds raised during this campaign have already begun to make a difference in the lives of the seriously ill and disabled children at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. Spending time on both the Spinal Unit as well as the General Ward, our interim music therapist Natasha is devoted to utilising music therapy as a tool to enable young patients to find distraction and relief from pain, ease anxiety and feelings of isolation, interact with peers through group music therapy sessions, and to be active and engaged in an often physically-restrictive environment. Music therapy can also be a powerful means of communication for children on the autism spectrum (who may have difficulty with verbal expression) or with limited mobility (such as children suffering from complete or partial paralysis)--creating music can be a method of communicating with the outside world for nonverbal children, while specialised musical instruments such as the Skoog permit children with physical limitations to make musical sounds with the very slightest of movements, like the blink of an eye!
The Future
In the coming months, our permanent music therapist Andy will be taking over from Natasha at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, and we are investigating the exciting possibility of offering a music therapy programme in the hospital's Neonatal Unit. Compelling research has shown the physical and emotional efficacy of music therapy on pre-term infants, and we are keen to offer these benefits (including better feeding, lower heart rates, and more restful sleep) to the very smallest of patients. But we can't do it without your help! We encourage you to visit our website and social media pages for the latest news and ways to support Rosie's Rainbow Fund. Together, you can help us bring brightness and colour to a child whose world has been darkened by serious illness.
Please accept our deepest gratitude and appreciation for your support and donations!
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
