Home > What we do > How the arts help

How the arts help.

Sometimes even adults can struggle to find the words to describe difficult emotions. Grief, trauma, illness, violence, poverty and abuse are not easy things to express no matter how old you are.
Dramatic Need reaches out to children in impoverished and remote areas and gives them a means to address the things they struggle to talk about. How? Through fun, muck, colour, glue, play, paint, movement and music, in a way that is non-threatening and accessible.

The arts can help to facilitate communication, manage emotions, develop visual literacy and begin the healing process.

The arts engage children by returning childhood to the child, allowing them to own their feelings and help them to come to terms with big emotions they may be struggling with.

At the very least, access to the arts provides kids living in extreme poverty a chink of light in what can be a difficult existence.

‘There is a need for an approach [to development thinking] that treats the human condition rather than just the physical symptoms of deprivation and conflict.’
Amber Sainsbury, Dramatic Need Trustee and founder.

Children should have a fundamental right to ‘freedom of expression’ and that this right should include “freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, ... in print, [or] in the form of art” (Article 13, UNCRC,1990). It is the right of the child “to engage in play, to participate freely in cultural life and the arts” (Article 31, UNCRC, 1990).
The UN Charter on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC)

“Music breeds an atmosphere of tolerance and basic humanity that is able to transcend national, social and historical boundaries. By igniting the imagination and feeding the basic human need to create, music in conflict areas can reverse long-held prejudices.”
Andy Staples, Opera singer and Director, and Trustee, The Choir of London

“There is an emerging recognition that cultural expression is both a human development goal in itself and also a means to achieve other forms of development... despite [this] there remain notably few organisations open to the notion of working meaningfully with culture.”
Andrew Firmin and Mark Nowottny, ‘Culture: the missing pillar of development’ in the Commonwealth Foundation Report, ‘Putting culture first: Commonwealth perspectives on culture and development’

"In these rural and township parts of southern Africa where tragedy is the rule, not the exception – the essential, humanitarian relevance of the arts is unequivocal."
Danny Boyle, Film director, Dramatic Need trustee.

The arts have been used to help children all over the world, in war zones, in hospitals, in refugee camps and in prisons. If you would like more information about programmes that have used the arts to help children, we have assembled some further reading:

Articles:

  • Dramatic Need founder Amber Sainsbury argues for a greater emphasis on the arts in Development initiatives. Read more >>

  • Why the Congo needs art as well as food, by Dramatic Need trustee Danny Boyle.
    The Times, UK. read more >>

  • A place to hide and heal. Art therapy helps troubled children in class and in life. Perhaps it should be offered in all schools.
    Guardian Newspaper, UK. read more >>

  • Painting a path to well-being: art therapy helps children of war mend the wounds
    CrossCurrents - The Journal of Addiction and Mental Health, Spring, 2003 read more >>

  • Art Therapy Helps Children Affected by Cancer Express Their Emotions.
    OncoLog, December 2003, Vol. 48, No. 12 read more >>

  • Russian 'miracles' in children's art therapy.
    International Herald Tribune, Jan 10, 2006 read more >>

  • Art Therapy with Children - A Window to Their World.
    University of Colorado Press, USA read more >>

  • Counselors say grieving students must be given emotional outlet.
    9 News, USA read more >>

  • Music therapy: The pied piper of Balata.
    The Independent, UK read more >>

  • Using Crayons to Exorcise Katrina.
    New York Times, USA read more >>

Books: