The Fundación Aladina is a spanish entity whose aim is to help children ill with cancer and their families. It was founded in the year 2005 whose legal figure is of a Non Profit Organization.[1] Their main aim is to help the children and their families in three pillars: emotional, material and psychological.[2]
The main project of the foundation has been the creation of the Maktub Center, a Bone Marrow Transplant center, number one in Spain created in the Hospital Infantil Universitario Niño Jesús and attends many patients every year at national level. [3]
History
editIn the year 2001, Paco Arango, creator and producer of the series ¡Ala... Dina!, began working in the Hospital Niño Jesús as a voluntary, in the Oncology section. He talks about his experience himself:
"I used to spend some hours sharing games with children with cancer. Little by little I began to establish friendships with the families and the children, many of them teenagers, who couldn't or didn't want to go to the games room. That changed my life and, what used to be weekly visit, ended up being a daily activity"[4]
Through this experience and the possibility of meeting up close the needs of the patients and their families, he decided to take up the project of the Fundación Aladina in the year 2005 in the Hospital Niño Jesús with its different activities.[5].
In the year 2013 they created the Maktub Center in the same hospital, opening as well the possibility of helping in other hospitals in Madrid with different Voluntary programs, material and psychological help for the patients with cancer. Afterwards different help programs have been developed in varios hospitals of Spain, reaching every year more than 1.200 patients. Thanks to their work, they have received many acknowledgements and prizes. [6]
Volunteer work
editThe volunteers of the foundation play a very important role accompanying the patients during the time they stay in the hospital. [7] The volunteers dedicate their afternoons to accompany the teenagers helping them with different ludic activities, giving them in that way moments in which they can forget they are in a hospital. It has been proved by numerous investigations in the scientific field the effectivity of the ludic activities and the diversion as a way of keeping the will to live in the children. [8]
The different volunteer programs help with different workshops and ludic activities as therapy. through them, children and teenagers learn to adapt to their new situation and their illness without loosing their joy and keeping alive their will to be cured. During the days in which their are no workshops, teenagers can go to the game zone accompanied by the volunteers to relax and forget their stay in the hospital.
Maktub Center
editOn february of 2013 Fundación Aladina inaugurated the Maktub Center, a bone marrow transplant wing number one in Spain, which has been the most ambitious project up to this moment. There have been 63 transplants during the first twelve months in this center.
Maktub Center had a cost superior to 500,000€ and is equipped with the latest technological advancements up to this moment. It has been thought as a center in which patients have to spend long periods of time, in which they can feel comfortable and in an atmosphere propitious for their recovery. [9]
The project was financed mainly by the benefits received by the producer of the movie Maktub, directed and produced by Paco Arango, together with the collaboration of other entities who decided to support this important project.[10]
Regional Mothers-Milk Bank Aladina-MGU
editAppart from all the reforms made for patients with cancer, the foundation has reformed the Mothers Milk Bank of the Hospital Doce de Octubre, and is the first bank of this tipe in all the peninsula and is fully working since 2007. Up to the date of the reform, it was equipped with a system giving out 600 liters of breast milk every year for those children that couldn't be breast fed by their mothers. Once the reform was done, the hospital was prepared with a regional bank giving out 2,000 liters of breast milk to all the Community of Madrid[11]
Psychological support
editFundación Aladina has made available for all the parents and patients free psychological help, having an expert psychooncologist in the Hospital Niño Jesús, as well as a private psychological consultation completely free in which there are individual sessions, for couples and for families. There is also a "Grief group", where parents with children ill with cancer can express their emotions and sentiments freely after the loss of a child, share their experiences and fears, and most of all, feel that they're not alone.
Awards and acknowledgments
edit
Throughout the years, the work of Fundación Aladina has been acknowledged with many awards[12]. Amang those, we find:
- Encomienda de la Orden del 2 de mayo de la Comunidad de Madrid
- Premio 24 horas Ford 2011
- Colmena de Oro a la Solidaridad de los Humanitarios de San Martinl
- Premios a la Infancia de la Comunidad de Madrid en la categoría de Entidad Social
- Premio de la Fundación Farmaindustria en la categoría de ONG y Colectivos Organizados
- Reconocimiento como Voluntarios de Honor en el área Materno-Infantil del Hospital Gregorio Marañón
- Premio Tweet Comprometido en la Gala Tweets Awards 2012
- Reconocimiento especial de la SEPO ( Sociedad Española de Psicooncología) a la Fundación Aladina en el Congreso Nacional de Psicooncología 2012
- Ganadora de la Convocatoria 2012 de Obra Social La Caixa
- Premios Solidarios del Seguro 2012 : Renovación de la iluminación de la Unidad de Oncohematología del Hospital Niño Jesús
- BBVA Territorios Solidarios
- Premio ADECOSE 2013
- Premio 24 Horas Ford 2013
- Embajador Social del Año 2013, Fundación Puentes del Mundo: Paco Arango, presidente Fundación Aladina
- Ganadora del Concurso Anual de Proyectos 2013. Fundación Pelayo
- Premio AGEA 2013: Paco Arango, presidente Fundación Aladina
- Premios Solidarios del Seguro 2013: Habilitación de un jardín cromático en el Hospital Niño Jesús
- Premio nacional de Marketing en su VI Edición, ganadora como institución[13]
References
edit- ^ http://www.teknlife.com/reportaje/sonreir-entre-sombras/
- ^ http://esradio.libertaddigital.com/fonoteca/2013-10-14/psicologia-ninos-con-cancer-64889.html
- ^ http://www.actualidadciudadana.es/index.php/mundo/asia/item/562-la-fundación-aladina-abre-el-centro-maktub-en-el-hospital-niño-jesús.html
- ^ http://www.aladina.org/eng/quienes_somos/carta_fundador.php
- ^ http://www.aladina.org/prensa/pdf/la_razon30.pdf
- ^ http://www.aladina.org/prensa/pdf/spanish_view_(_junio_2014)-169.pdf
- ^ http://www.aladina.org/eng/hacemos/voluntariado.php
- ^ http://www.oncosaludable.es/es/inicio/preguntas-frecuentes-mitos-leyendas/actividades-sociales-y-culturales
- ^ http://www.aladina.org/prensa/pdf/anuario_del_marketing_2014-162.pdf
- ^ http://www.aladina.org/prensa/pdf/alfa_&_omega-54.pdf
- ^ http://www.lavanguardia.com/local/madrid/20140603/54409583432/el-12-de-octubre-suministrara-leche-materna-donada-a-la-paz-y-puerta-hierro.html
- ^ http://www.aladina.org/quienes_somos/quienes_somos.php
- ^ http://www.lacomunidadpublicitaria.com/noticia/cuales-son-las-marcas-finalistas-en-los-premios-nacionales-de-marketing