Let’s Meet Artistic Therapy Workshop
Our Artistic Therapy Workshop in Lubiatowo by the Baltic Sea (in Pomorskie Province) was built thanks to people who donated 1% of their personal income tax to Anna Dymna’s Against the Odds Foundation, as well as other donors and sponsors. It is the only facility of this type in Choczewo commune and the area surrounding it.
The workshop is intended for people with disabilities who are at risk of social exclusion and had no opportunity to benefit from therapy and rehabilitation before we opened our facility in November 2014. The two-floor modern building was designed by the Limba Architectural Studio from Kraków. It is located in a forest on the seaside, in an area that used to be occupied by military rocket forces.
The people in our care have felt that they are not needed in the world for a long time
In our Artistic Therapy Workshop, specialists supervise people with disabilities when they use a household and garden studio, computer and printing studio, art and crafts studio, and ceramic and paper studio. The aim of classes is to prepare the people in our care to undertake professional activities and to boost their self-esteem, pro-social attitudes, dutifulness and responsibility for assigned tasks. We are making efforts to run a social cooperative in Lubiatowo. The people in our care are also keen and happy to carry out tasks assigned by third parties. An example may be our cooperation with the Coastal Protection Department in Lubiatowo, which is a branch of the Maritime Office in Gdynia (we cleaned up sand dunes).
The aim of everyday classes at the Artistic Therapy Workshop is to enable people with disabilities to return to the job market
The workshop is also a centre for local integration. Anna Dymna has organised many poetry readings there and has invited outstanding artists, such as Professor Krzysztof Orzechowski, Ewa Kaim, Radosław Krzyżowski and Adam Nowak. Recently, there was a concert of songs by Kabaret Starszych Panów (there were so many people willing to listen that not all of them could fit in the theatre room). There is no admission fee for such events. Since April, studios in the Artistic Therapy Workshop have been used by seniors who attend the University of the Third Age in Choczewo.
As I am standing in front of the workshop building in Lubiatowo, which is beautiful also from the architectural point of view, I close my eyes and remind myself of the time when this was the location of a gloomy and deserted bunker which the military had used to store and renovate rackets. This metamorphosis seems to be a miracle says Anna Dymna.