The Healing Project is pleased to present Writing for Life: Finding Your Healing Voice, a creative writing therapy support group for breast cancer patients. The group will meet on Mondays, from 5:30-6:45pm, starting on February 18th, 2008, for a 4-week session. The group will take place at St. Vincent’s Comprehensive Cancer Center, 325 W. 15th St., (between 8th-9th Aves.), New York City.

The objective of this face-to-face support group is to help facilitate the processing of feelings through written expression. The goal is to help survivors achieve an increase in hopefulness and strength as they use a “new voice” to reframe their cancer experience.

Research on the rehabilitative benefit of creative therapy for cancer patients has shown that through reflection and new, expressive interpretations of one’s life throughout treatment, women can strengthen their own social boundaries.1 The act of creative discourse through poetry, journaling and story can open up just such opportunities for clarification of purpose post-treatment. One study showed that creative therapies with breast cancer patients facilitated greater insight into how to make clearer and more focused choices in their relationships with others.2

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The Extracurricular Youth Education Program

The Healing Project believes that by understanding, identifying and providing opportunities to support, develop and teach healthy nutritional habits, it will help struggling neighborhoods realize better, sustainable results for disconnected and disadvantaged children and their families.

In March 2007, The Healing Project launched a series of after-school classes, entitled Fruity Tales, for elementary school students. The Fruity Tales program combines geography, language, literature and art while introducing nutritional concepts relevant to the projects at hand. Classes are held at the Morrisania Diagnostic & Treatment Center in the South Bronx and conducted in both English and Spanish.

In July 2007, The Healing Project launched a summer program, entitled Our Stories, for the children of incarcerated mothers, most of whom currently live within New York City’s foster care system. Students participating in the Our Stories program are led on an imaginative journey through story and word games that not only inspire their art-making but also teach them about nutrition, the color, shape and texture of healthy food choices. Our Stories is held at Hour Children, Queens, NY and conducted in both English and Spanish.

Click on the box above to view the art work produced by
the Spring/Summer 2007 graduating class at Fruity Tales.

In addition to implementing regular class programs within specific organizations like Morrisania, The Healing Project intends to expand its Extracurricular Youth Education Program city-wide within its first two years of operation (classes will be offered in all five boroughs by spring 2009). Eventually, The Healing Project will distribute the program nationally. Unlike other nonprofits that offer health education classes, The Healing Project produces its programs, free of charge, in two languages (English and Spanish) at health services organizations that are easily accessible, making its classes widely available to those in need, not to mention, safe and secure. In addition, The Healing Project offers free, one-on-one tutoring for all interested students.

For more information and/or to become a sponsor, please contact Debra LaChabce directly at:Debra@thehealingproject.org.