Super Hoola

Every Thursday I volunteer at the Center for Women and Children in Crisis, a shelter for women and their children victims of domestic violence. It has been a great experience and sometimes happier than others.

I started just helping around and playing with the kids while their moms go to group therapy, but since two weeks ago I have been helping the recreational therapist that does group with the older children, ages 8 to 12. They know of my experience and schooling in the area of drama-therapy and asked me to help last week.

So last Thursday we talked about heros and their strengths and weaknesses. We first asked the kids who was their favorite hero and why. Then we showed them very well-known heros like spiderman, superman, batman, wonderwoman, wolverine etc. and they had to identify the heros' strengths and weaknesses. We had lots of props and costumes and we then asked them to create their own hero, come up with a name, a reason for being, the caracteristics and strengths and weaknesses. It was a lot of fun!



My hero is called Super Hoola and is from the islands in Hawaii. Her reason for being is to save people who are in danger in the ocean, her strength is swimming fast and communicating with ocean animals to get their help and her weakness is pollution, for it destroys the oceans...


Every child had a chance to go up and tell us about their hero. Some were more outgoing than others but all of them did a great job!

At the end we asked them to identify in themselves, as humans, something that was very unique about them. Mine was that I like to make people laugh and have a good time.

A girl talked about how she likes to be friendly, another said she is kind.
A boy said he wants to protect people from robbers but the last one impressed me the most.

He said his strength is that he knows that he can be whatever he wants to be when he grows up. He said If I want to be a doctor I can be that, if I want to be a lawyer I can be that, if I want to ride horses I can do that and if I want to work at Walmart I can do that, and that is my quality, I know I can be whatever I want when I grow up. He is 8 years old. I was amazed. And glad!

It is so important for those kids to know their potential, especially when their world is in such tormoil right now.
After that session I was invited to possibly to more work with those kids in their group therapy time. I can't wait! THIS is what I love doing! It'd be so cool! I hope it works out!

For more information about the shelter and how to help click here! :)