Perfume, musk sticks, flowers, the beach. When we think of what children miss out on when they’re in hospital, we don’t tend to think about scents and smells. But some kids can go many months without experiencing much more than the clean, chemical smells of the hospital wards.

Sick kids in hospital need to be given every chance to experience sensory activities and creativity, and thanks to our Movement of Many, our ArtEx program provides therapeutic, fun, art-based activities to keep kids exploring and creating.

In a series of innovative, enjoyable and in-depth workshops, ECOYA provided the ArtEx program with candles for kids to smell, to visualise and to express what they visualised on paper. With scents like lotus flower, sweet pea & jasmine and elderflower, kids had fun interpreting these smells into familiar memories, and expressing what their favourite scents were. 

The individuality of each kid’s responses were reflected in the images they drew: from summer days, flowers and rainbows, to fashion models, lollies and fruit. All the kids expressed themselves and interpreted the scents in a unique way.

As part of our partnership with ECOYA, you can check out some of the drawings on ECOYA’s website, where $2 from each online order in Australia comes to SCHF, enabling more experiences like these for sick kids in hospital across the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network.

Check out the artworks and the full range of ECOYA candles on their website www.ecoya.com.au.