Co-ordinator: Ken Walker

Timisoara is the capital of Timis County, and the largest city in Western Romania, with a population of about 450,000.

Muzika has in the past sent volunteers to work in several children’s homes, orphanages and schools there.

However, since 2000, Muzika has worked mainly in conjunction with The “Therapy through Art” Organization. It has its base in one of the Timisoara orphanages, which is now known as ‘The Art Therapy Centre Eliza Ionescu’. It is a non-governmental organisation, the objectives of which are as follows:

• To provide rehabilitation through art therapy at the community level;
• To initiate a variety of therapy projects through different forms of art;
• To become a centre for professional development and education, and to help establish a network of art therapists at a national level.

It is in the third of these objectives that Muzika has played a significant role during the last six years, by sending out teams to run courses for adults: teachers, carers, psycho-logists, in fact all those who work with children with disabilities. Volunteer trainers from Muzika have helped to broaden the scope beyond Art Therapy, offering courses about Dance Therapy, Music Therapy and Puppetry and Storytelling, and their role as a form of therapy.

These courses have been held over four days, which has made it possible, during the rest of the week, for the Muzika volunteers to visit course members in their places of work, and see how they might be able to put into practice what they have learnt.
Between 2006 and 2008, two music therapists have been able to go out to Timisoara three years running, creating real continuity and development in their work.

The Art Therapy Centre has in recent years managed to get funding from UNICEF to help run these courses.

Last year a project was set in motion to send a small group of final year Occupational Therapy students from Salford University to the Art Therapy Centre to share their knowledge and skills. So long as funding is available, this project might become something that happens every year. We are hoping for the best!

The Director of the Art Therapy Centre, with whom Muzika works, is Doina Pocioianu, who is also a well known artist in Romania, and Muzika’s representative and translator in Timisoara is Adriana Lazaroaia.