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The Theodora Foundation is a non-profit organisation for the welfare of children in hospitals and specialist care centres for children with disabilities. The aim of the foundation is to brighten up the children’s everyday lives with moments of joy and laughter, employing professional artists, the “Giggle Doctors”.
“Theodora” was the name of the mother of the founders of the foundation, Jan and André Poulie. After her death, the two brothers decided to set up a foundation in memory of their mother’s cheerful and positive character and to name it after her. Theodora’s character traits are still a great source of inspiration for the Giggle Doctors today.
The Theodora Foundation was founded by the brothers Jan and André Poulie in 1993, in memory of their late mother Theodora. André Poulie had to spend several months in hospital as a child after an accident. The regular visits from his humorous, fun-loving mother brought him a lot of joy and a change from everyday hospital life.
The Theodora Foundation calls the professional artists who travel around the hospitals and specialist care centres under its mandate “Giggle Doctors”. The Giggle Doctors are specially trained and work in close consultation with the nursing staff.
The Theodora Foundation employs 68 Giggle Doctors who regularly visit children in hospitals and specialist care centres throughout Switzerland. These funny, magical figures gear their visits specifically to each individual child, making it the focus of attention. Imaginative, poetic moments are created together, which cheer up the child and his or her relatives so that they can forget their everyday life for a moment.
Today, more than 100,000 visits to children are possible each year thanks to the 68 Giggle Doctors. Every hospital and specialist care centre for children with disabilities is visited regularly on certain days of the week.
The Theodora Foundation is mainly financed by private donations. It also benefits from the support of corporate partners. The Theodora Foundation is recognised as a non-profit organisation and carries out its activities in hospitals and specialist care centres free of charge for those involved. It does not receive any subsidies from the public sector. You can find more information here.
The corporate partners support the Theodora Foundation with annual contributions and in-kind support, which almost entirely cover the foundation’s administrative costs. In this way, private donations flow for the most part into the core mission (visits to children in hospitals and specialist care centres). You can find the list of partners here.
No, the Giggle Doctors are artists who are paid by the Theodora Foundation to visit hospitals and specialist care centres. The job of the Theodora artist is a qualified, demanding task that requires intensive training (provided by the Theodora Foundation), complemented with annual further training courses.
The job of the Giggle Doctor requires both certain human qualities and artistic skills. The latter include, for example, a talent for improvisation and experience either as a clown, in pantomime, as a dancer, singer, musician, storyteller or magician. Training at the Theodora Foundation complements an already existing artistic base. For further information or applications, please contact us at formation@theodora.ch.
“The Theodora Foundation trains professional artists to become Giggle Doctors, if required. The one-year, part-time course is a coordinated blend of theory and practice and is realised in close cooperation with specialists from various fields.
The theoretical part includes a range of artistic workshops and courses. The artists acquire essential knowledge about the topics of hospitals, child psychology and disabilities.”
In order to safeguard the privacy of the patients and to avoid interfering with the daily routine of the hospital, we are unable to allow visitors to accompany us at the hospital except in rare exceptional cases. However, we are at your disposal for more detailed information on the activities of the Giggle Doctors.
Yes, the foundation won the Adele Duttweiler prize in 2006, the Doron prize in 2007 and the Raiffeisen prize in 2010. In addition, Foundation President André Poulie received the “Melvin Jones Award” from the International Lions Club Foundation in 2016 for his humanitarian commitment.