An Author with no name – Black and blue

‘An author with no name’ has been written to support and bring awareness to domestic abuse. It aims to use the poems as an unlocked door to delve into the middle and the harsh and hidden reality of the subject.

Mental health awareness books

As mental health becomes more and more in the forefront of the public eye, we are committed to raising awareness and supporting mental health in children and young adults.

We will be doing so by publishing a series of mental health books. The first 3 will be written about domestic abuse, suicide and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) .  They are written with hard hitting poems, with the aim of being close to the reality of the subjects.  At times, we wondered whether some of the poems should be included as they may be ‘too’ intrusive, but it was decided that they would be left in so as to not hold back on the reality of the subjects that we are ultimately trying to raise awareness of , following the advice of professionals in mental health, this is what we have done.

A pony morning

The UK pony and art days have started. Our latest day was a pony theme during our art and craft session, where we made collages of happy and sad ponies. We related this to a children’s story about a pony who was sad and had lost his friends. The children listened to this story at the beginning of the session and we talked about what would make a pony happy and what would make it sad. The children then made lots of food such as carrots and apples out of play-dough which we pretended to feed to our pony collages that we had made.  The children also made pony masks which they could make into any feeling that they chose. All of the masks and collages were decorated with different textures of materials that the children wanted to use, letting them use their creativity whilst guiding them through the aim of the day.

The second part of the morning was based at the farm where the children are able to have hands on contact with our ponies. The children took part in grooming the ponies and some of them had a small ride on them too. The ponies always love a fuss and it was great that the children were able to take part in caring for them.

Pony days April 2014

Want to be part of our pony days this year?

They are starting to run already. Here is how they work…

They are split into 2 different parts, an art session and then a  hands on animals session

The art session

The art session is themed but is always open to a child’s individual ideas and needs. They are also aimed to discover and learn about different feelings and this can be done in many forms in a non-intrusive way.

Whilst the hands on animal half of the day is only with our ponies, the art session can be themed for different age groups, different interests that the children have or simply an idea that arises by members of the team that they think would work well with the children.

The children lead the sessions, but we give them our themes and ideas to support them with this.  For example, the theme of the session may be ‘ponies’ , ‘primates’ or ‘cars’. All of these can be put into a form of story telling,  by creating characters out of ponies, monkeys or cars.  Drawings, collages, paintings, musical instruments, can all be created through arts and crafts, and can all contain different feelings and emotions. Life is full of emotions that we can come across on a daily basis, and these can be brought into the characters and ideas that we are making.

The hands on animal session

The second part of the day is the hands on animal session with our ponies at a farm within walking distance from our art venue.  The children will be able to take part in whatever way they choose to do. The activities available to them will include, stroking and patting the ponies, brushing the ponies, leading the ponies, sitting on the ponies and even riding them, all with experienced equine handlers and riders who know our ponies and their personalities very well. The children may even just wish to watch them if they don’t feel confident to do anything else.

Other information

• We have between 1-4 children in one session
• In each session, the children will be of similar ages
• Parents/guardians must be present at each session.
• This is ultimately a free service but donations are welcome on the day to help us fund the art materials we use, and the ponies dinner!
• The sessions are run in the small village of Fernhurst which is near Haselmere, Surrey/Sussex

If you would like your child to participate in one of these sessions then please email us at lisa.davies@yeboyes.org

If you would like to volunteer your ideas then please email lisa.davies@yeboyes.org

Pony days update

The past 3 weeks have seen a number of children from the surrounding areas take part in our pony days which have included trial days and days with children who we offer our support to.

 

Making friends

The days have consisted of pony riding, grooming, tacking up, feeding and taking part in art activities. Children from the surrounding areas were offered a chance to join us in the local village.

Toby is our main pony who takes children for rides and our other ponies are there to be groomed and loved.  After the pony part of the day we made different games and creative activities. These included apple and carrot bobbing, making and playing with hobby horses, creating pony pictures with hand painting, pebble painting and we even made a drama play where ponies made friends and helped eachother to live in the fields.

During the winter months, the art and play activity sessions will take place at the local village hall after the pony sessions at the farm.

NB: Some of our photographs have been edited to protect the child’s identity

Volunteers needed for UK primate days

We are looking for enthusiastic, reliable, sensitive and caring volunteers to help out on our UK primate days. The days are planned at various child support charities. So far we have been working with children’s hospices, where we worked with siblings of the children who are supported at the hospice.

The days are full of creativity, fun, looking at feelings, communication and the similarities between primates and humans. The activities are very flexible and we always have an open mind and invite ideas of new activities. The volunteers working on the day need to be able to use their intuition and be spontaneous if needed, as-well as sticking to the aims of the day.

Contacts for these volunteering roles are at the bottom of the page.

We run different activities at the days, and they are age dependent too. The charity is contacted and we put together the activities to suit the age range of children and the support that they may need. Examples of some of our activities we use to  work the days with are:

The Yebo Primate communication board:

The  primate communication board is a game where the children stick on different faces of expression onto the primates on the board. The board is made up by our activities coordinator and is a group of monkeys with missing faces with velcroe on. We then have a pack of monkey faces with different expressions on such as sad, happy, tired, excited etc.   The children are able made up stories of what is happening to the primates to cause them to have the expressions that they were changing around on the faces, which are interchangeable with velcro  backs.

Puppet making

We help the children make primate puppets, using cardboard and furry material. These are made to allow the children to create their own primate with their own expression. They can then make up a puppet show and take these home with them if they would like to.

There are many more  activities you can run for older children using computer games. These have also proved a lot of fun in the past for teenagers supported by the hospices. we even ran a day called Monkey’s got talent…read about some of the days below

http://www.yeboyes.org/?p=1583

http://www.yeboyes.org/?p=1

If you  think you would be a good candidate for this volunteering role then we would love to hear from you.

You can contact Lisa Davies via email

Lisa.davies@yeboyes.org