Russian cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov has shared with Sputnik his impressions of taking part in a rocket art project session with child patients at the University Teaching Hospital, Lusaka
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th December, 2021) Russian cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov has shared with Sputnik his impressions of taking part in a rocket art project session with child patients at the University Teaching Hospital, Lusaka.
On Friday, Zambian pediatric oncology patients painted their dreams on pieces of paper, which will decorate a real Russian rocket.
"A visit to the children's oncology department of the city hospital was one of the main purposes of our visit to Lusaka," Kud-Sverchkov said.
The rocket art project team settled in a playroom with chairs and tables, where the walls are covered with posters about English grammar, mathematics and the solar system.
"While my colleagues from the Unity foundation � the event organizer � were preparing the playroom for drawing, I showed the children and hospital staff films about space and a flight to the ISS," Kud-Sverchkov said. "I told them about the ISS project from the very beginning. Sometimes I just didn't know how kids would react to my words and the film. It seemed that for some kids it was like virtual reality, computer graphics."
But nevertheless, some things are intelligible to any person on earth, regardless of language and age, the cosmonaut continued.
"For example, a video about how to eat in space in zero gravity and how to wash in the same conditions," he noted. "When in the video I let go of food from my hands (and it flew away from me), or washed my hair with bubbles of water, in the hall, children and adults were noticeably animated and cheerful. And then we went to paint."
The idea behind the project is to give inspiration and strength to children battling cancer by "launching" their dreams into space.
"Like all ordinary children, local children could not decide for a long time what and how to draw," Kud-Sverchkov said. "Thoughtful and concerned, they did not know where to start: with a pencil or a brush? What color to use? Then the matter somehow got off the ground, and satellites and planets, cars and houses, the sun and little men of the most interesting shades began to emerge from under the brushes of the young artists."
In the end, the Unity team collected all the drawings, and in return everyone was presented with bright scarves with the drawings which already had been in space, a handful of sweets and a balloon.
"Sweets, by the way, caused no less surprise than the movie about the ISS," the cosmonaut said. "Kids are always kids and for them marshmallows and soft caramel in hand are even more interesting then space which is far away. The children tried the sweets and at first just went back to the ward. But after a few minutes they began timidly to enter the playroom again - sweets were right there!" Then they began blowing soap bubbles, and it became a real holiday.
"The children were jumping and laughing, catching bubbles with their hands ... All they had to do was to catch and burst all the bubbles in the room the fastest!" he recalls. "At that moment, the difference in age, status, and standard of living did not matter. The children forgot about their disease. We all smiled and rejoiced together. And only the catheters sticking out of the bandages on the legs and arms of the children distinguished them from others playing in the street."
Nurses even had to remind them that it is a hospital.
"When we said goodbye, the children were no longer the same as when we met them," Kud-Sverchkov said. "Now it was a funny team of kids, shouting 'Bye!', so that we heard these screams even as we went down in the elevator."
"May the experience give them strength and bring the moment of recovery closer!" he added. "It is also a good lesson for adults - even in difficult circumstances, one must be able to enjoy life like these children. Enjoy simple things. For example, soap bubbles. "
Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and his wife Olga are the ambassadors of Unity foundation and regularly participate in such events in different countries.
"There is a tradition in our family of participating in Unity charity events in a hospital together. We have two kids ourselves and it is very important for us to share our love and attention with kids in a difficult situation," Olga told Sputnik.
Zambia is the third country to participate in the art rocket project, which was launched in June 2021 in Belgrade, Serbia and continued in Irkutsk, Russia by the Unity foundation with the support of Russian space agency Roscosmos. Prior to the New Year, the Unity team will visit a rehabilitation center in the Moscow region to "collect" more dreams. The project represents art therapy sessions in pediatric oncology centers and aims to creatively raise awareness about children's cancer while simultaneously giving children around the world a unified platform, encouraging them to dream, to explore, and to have courage.
It is not the first time Zambia has participated in space art projects. In 2020, children from UTH painted their dreams on a Dreamer spacesuit along with children from nine more countries. The Dreamer spacesuit was delivered to the ISS in April 2021.
Space art projects are organized by Unity foundation (Russia) and Space for Art Foundation (USA) with the support of Roscosmos and NASA globally.
In Zambia, the art session is supported by the representative office of the Russian agency for international humanitarian cooperation, Rossotrudnichestvo, and the Russian cultural center in Zambia.
