It’s generally not a lot of fun for anyone to be in a hospital, but it’s especially tough on kids. Though doctors, nurses, family and friends make long stays more bearable, there is still much time where pediatric patients can feel lonely, bored and scared.

Storytelling has been well researched for its therapeutic effects with children. While Storytelling is entertaining, it provides metaphors to life situations, often helping children deal with their current emotional states and find alternatives for the challenges they face..

During the hospital stays and/or visits, children and their families experience unusual amounts of stress, anxiety and discomfort. Recognising the therapeutic and entertaining nature of the art of storytelling, The Uday Foundation plans to create and implement a storytelling program at children wards of the Hospitals using our storytelling volunteers as well as storytelling performances by celebrities, artists, sports persons, teachers, writers, journalists and all the faces which are very popular among children.

Our main aim is to helps children, adolescents and their families to maintain a normal living and minimise fears and anxieties during hospitalisation.

Research has shown that “storytelling is a developmentally sensitive tool to elicit children’s thoughts, identify their distortions, and help them to more accurately make sense of their world.” Storytelling can help children to understand and to find ways to cope with their experiences. It has been noted that “therapeutic metaphors and guided fantasy offer choices to children in an appealing and effective form without verbal or behavioral prescription. Those to whom stories are told can use the content in their own ways and can take from them those meanings that are particularly applicable to their present circumstances.”.