The travel workshop that transforms hospital life

Our mission with children and teenagers weakened by illness and disability is based on the stories of travelers with big (very big!) heart.

17 expeditions share their adventures every week with the children we accompany all over France, between 2024 and 2025!

We can't thank them enough: our travelers are exceptional, and some also came to meet the children before they left! Strong bonds are forged: young people, often isolated, exchange ideas, rediscover a taste for relationships and "embark with them" to the other side of the world.

At the Clinic L'escale de Saint-Victoret (13), for example, hospitalized children follow the travel logs of Bryan and Sébastien "Les roues de la liberté". Our two cyclists came to meet hospitalized teenagers in September. In their video presentation, they tell you all about their project > see you between 4:38 and 5:40!"

Our aim is to guarantee the follow-up of our workshops throughout the school year, in all the regions and towns where we intervene in hospital, psychiatric units.

Many thanks to you for your invaluable support and difts!

Dear difteurs,

On October 1, Angèle joined the team of Kolibri animators at the L'enfant@l'hôpital association as a volunteer in Civic Service! For 8 months, she will be working in our partner establishments in the Bouches-du-Rhône region, with children and teenagers made vulnerable by illness or disability.

In child and adolescent psychiatry wards, places where few associations dare to go, Angèle runs 5 workshops each week with young hospitalized Marseillais.Trained in pedagogy and the Kolibri digital tool as soon as she arrived, Angèle brings all her energy and motivation to bear on the well-being of these young people:

Her determination to pass on the travel logs of our globe-trotting solidarity travelers, her joie de vivre and the warmth of her stories delight young patients, opening a wide window on society, the world and its beauties. Bravo and thank you Angèle!

Our aim is to follow up our workshops throughout the school year in all the regions and towns where we work in hospitals and psychiatric wards.

Last Tuesday, September 3, as they do every year, Clémence and Barbara, our employees, went to École polytechnique, to meet the candidate animators for the 2024-2025 school year. 

The association is fortunate to have been a partner of the École polytechnique for over 25 years: every year, it welcomes 5 young students on a 6-month full-time human training period. They are the ones who criss-cross France to visit children and run Kolibri workshops perfectly tailored to their needs.

During the Forum, Clémence and Barbara introduced the young polytechnicians to our mission with vulnerable children all over France and to their future role as animators.

Thank you to Adel, Camille, François, Noé and Siloë, our polytechnician animators from 2023-24 for stopping by to see us on the stand! We are truly grateful and very happy to maintain a strong link with the Polytechnique students, who are very committed and loyal to our association.

The 2023-2024 school year is over: it's also the summer break for Kolibri workshops in our partner hospital establishments all over France.

At the association, June is a festive month: the last workshops are always the occasion for a few snacks, and the "good-byes" to the solidarity travelers (who have exchanged and shared their adventures with the children), often take the form of video-testimonials, videoconferences or better still... visits within the groups of beneficiary children!

For example, on their return to France, the "Tongs et Bottes" expedition travelers went to Dijon on Thursday June 20, and the "Happy et Compagnie" family visited Limoges on Tuesday June 25. Beautiful, joyful moments of sharing and gratitude after more than 9 months of warm exchanges!

For its part, the association's team is taking advantage of the break in the Kolibri workshops to actively prepare for the new school year: our CAPTAIN CAUSE project aims to perpetuate Kolibri workshops in 2024-2025 in all the child psychiatric units that the association accompanies throughout France.

Thank you to all our Captains and patrons who are working alongside us to combat the isolation and learning difficulties of these young patients!

L'enfant@l'hôpital's 2023 general ordinary meeting was held on March 27. It provided an opportunity to highlight its actions and its development dynamic: in an economic context that remains difficult and uncertain, the association has opened 18 new workshopsout of the 93 dispensed throughout France.

Congratulations to Claire Bach, our new President: a polytechnician and former children's animator, Claire has been involved with us for 7 years.

"My encounter with the association came about in 2017: I was then an animator for 6 months with young people in Toulouse, Cambrai, Creil or Eragny-sur-Oise. Since then I've been a traveler, vice-president and now president.

What I like about the asso is this constant adjustment of the team to carry out its central mission: to enable children and young people to learn while having fun and discovering the world, no matter where they are in France!"

PS/ Our Captain Cause project aims to continue our workshops throughout the school year in all the regions and towns where we intervene in hospital psychiatric units: thanks to all our Captains and patrons who support us! 

Every Thursday and Friday, Isabel and Lucie, our young entertainers, travel to Brittany, to run workshops with children and teenagers on the day hospitalization units at the Guillaume Régnier hospital in Rennes (35).

These young patients, often suffering from new pathologies, considered to be psychic or mental handicaps of varying severity (precocity, school phobias, hyperactivity, eating or behavioral disorders, depression, addictions, suicidal crises,...) are all in great suffering.

Our workshops, tailored to their specific difficulties and needs, are an opportunity for them to:

During these sessions, young beneficiaries discover the world through the adventures of the "Crabe-Total, le retour" expedition: Laetitia, Benjamin, Oren and Liah, a family set off on a round-the-world trip in October 2023. 

This is also an opportunity for the children to carry out manual and artistic activities linked to the travelers' discoveries! 

See how they made the paper lanterns, inspired by those of the Loy Krathong festival in Thailand.