Abstract

SOMMERHALDER, Aline; LINO, Ana Maria  and  NICOLIELO, Maria Elisa. Volunteering and humanization with clowns: why? For what? Interventions with the hospitalized children. Conjectura: filos. e Educ. [online]. 2019, vol.24, e019028.  Epub July 31, 2020. ISSN 2178-4612.  https://doi.org/10.18226/21784612.v24.e019028.

The article originates from research on a social practice experienced by adult volunteers who acted as clowns and characters in interventions performed in a hospital in the city of São Carlos / SP. The objective is to identify and reflect from circus resources and voluntary activity, indicators for a dialogical relationship between the participants: children, employees, companions and volunteers. Thus, to analyze the purpose of interventions during the hospitalization of children for health treatment. The activities, structure and organization of the Amor em Gotas Group (GAG) (São Carlos SP) constituted the study context for the analysis and reflection on the role of volunteering and the interventions with clown, aiming at the process of humanization in the hospital environment, emphasizing that there are several groups that work in this activity with similar practices. The study presents the interrelation between the circus culture, the conditions of hospitalization and the possibilities of resignification of the disease. The case study was carried out as a scientific methodology of qualitative research with registration in field journals. The analysis presents the theoretical contribution of education, with emphasis on Paulo Freire’s thought. Among the results, the presence of groups of clowns and characters in a hospital environment expresses volunteerism as a form of permanent education, besides representing a strategy of coping with pain and suffering caused by illness. But mainly, in this interaction, children take on the condition of subjects and authors in their own way of acting in the world, which has in play not the joyful and fun way to endure the treatment, but the re-signification of possibilities of coping and overcoming.

Keywords : Humanization; Volunteering; Clowns; Hospitalized children.

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