Visit by a Scientist

“We are all one. The Interdependence of all living forms is unquestionable. At Ngataringa Organic Garden (NOG) we give meaning  to this sentence and  transform  it to joyful play for children. Understanding and respecting the wisdom of nature ; Hildegarde von Bingen  herbs, teaching respect of fellow friend when massaging their palms or foraging plants for lunch. That’s what   Environmental sustainability in practice means for us
. “ Ph.D. Eng. Piotr Grzybowski   admired  the way we ran our classes for students and as contribution to our programme he set up the bath for the purpose of worm farm for children. He as well agreed to become our volunteer Consultant

A Very Special Day

On January 14th. 2017 the Child Connection Trust held it's 20 year A.G.M meeting.   This year it was special to see children of some of the board members come along. The principles that are at the heart of our organisation are practiced on our new generation. We were lucky to have great weather, and the beautiful surroundings of Cornwall Park Auckland. 

CMC in Academic Publication

Izabela Bogdanowicz, Phd, lecturer at The Warsaw’s University, supports Child Connection Trust from its beginning with her professional advice.
Her last publication “Supporting the development of children’s communication as a social competence on the example of CMC/4D – educational programme authored by Eva Scherer “ is a part of the book “Transformations in cultural social and educational activity. Challenges towards contemporary Europe”. 

The book was published by Siedlce University of Natural Science and Humanities at the end of 2016

http://childconnection.org.nz\wp-content\uploads\cmc article.pdf

Social competence –, creating and supporting good communication within a family using touch has a universal meaning. As long as we respect babies and children’s natural longing for good touch for proper emotional physical and social development and practicing it at home, we can safely implement  them into childcare and education pursuits.

Update from Warsaw

A group of 5 year old students at Kindergarten number 45 after practicing for a year a Back Massage technique, have just started to practice Hands Massage . Do they enjoy it?  Let the pictures tell the story.

Some comments:

Massage is not difficult
It was very nice
Hands massage is nice and pleasurable
I massaged Ignacy’s hands. It was good. I think that I massaged well
Its very nice to massage hands
I like it

; Out of Poland

3 years ago my friend Jenny Harrison –(in picture with me) started to write a book based on letters that had been hidden in a leather suitcase for decades. I was involved with the translation of these letters. The book is titled "Out of Poland: When the best revenge is to have survived – A Holocaust Story" has been published http://www.jennyharrison-author.com/ . What does have it in common with my CMC programme?

Even though I was born in Poland after the war, the tragic history of the country was still very vivid and influenced my life.  The only logical solution for me to solve the problem was leaving the country and making something for a better life for generations to come. It sounds pathetic, but it was,  and still is like this. New place was New Zealand and extraordinary people helping with this journey was the management of Mt. Albert YMCA. Next step is to be ‘A Peace Project” with as well as English and Polish ,will have a few more language versions of the CMC songs .I believe it will not take a lot of time.

– A Special Anniversary

20 years ago, Auckland City Council and YMCA Mt Albert made an agreement of mutual cooperation.

I had emigrated  to new Zealand at exactly this time and was lucky finding YMCA as a friendly premises for my sports massage clinic so that we could send people from St Lukes mall, where they received chair massages from my team, to a proper massage place.  
In those days Jill Gibson and Arvid Ditchburn were a young team running the YMCA. They were very friendly and supportive, so when I suggest that I can teach children during school holiday a massage they agreed. One year later my Children Massaging Children program was born!
20 years later- they are still young and YMCA run by Jill has many achievements including excellent dance and art classes. . Arvid is now at head office.  When we met at the event it felt like a big family reunion.

What’s new with CMC

Anna Pomykała, one of the CMC instructors in Poland, and me, have lot of common. Same as me she is a professional massage therapist and body worker specialising in working with rollers. I love this technique. Using body weight you can ease tension in your muscles. https://ciaoterapia.wordpress.com/about/
Anna is also a passionate  teacher using CMC especially  with older children and adults as relaxing technique. Well done Anna!