Huge trip to see Ralph movie
After seeing a movie trailer daily for a great child friendly fun cartoon movie, I tested whether this was one I should consider for a big trip. Taking a group of children and staff to a normal showing of a movie means a few challenges: people staring, timings that do not suit the orphanage meal times and air conditioning that’s really cold. Booking a private showing at a time that suits us means we can turn up the temperature for children who are used to warm rooms. Also, it means no one who is not from a government home is staring because nobody has parents with them. That time old question does not get asked…. ‘did their parents abandon them?’ But doing that for 30 people when you have all those spare seats seems silly. The orphanage I work in does not have enough staff to chaperone more than 20 children on an outing, even if it is only down the road.
The perfect solution is to rent out the full room and then invite all the local orphanages. There were eight invited this time, but one was unable to attend. A total of 240 children and staff attended this time. The difficulty of this solution is that sponsors have restricted funds for certain homes, so can’t sponsor it all. There are charities and groups around that donate to the needs of the orphanages, some restricting what funds are used for and others not. I often get a price of what the items will cost, then the donor gives that amount and then the amount needed is reduced ‘for the children’. This means I have little pots of change. This trip helped use up three pots of change. It is not 1Step2Step money that paid for this trip, but as a 1Step2Step worker, I organise, plan and invite the homes.
It’s quite a straightforward trip, as the homes all bring their children by their own transport, just down the road no further than ten minutes away. The Major Hollywood cinema gave discounted tickets and free popcorn for everyone and a friend’s charity gave grape juice cartoons for all.
The children come in and sit down, watch the show, laugh and smile and then head home after a great morning at the movies, which is a real treat. The staff get an easy morning and see the children happy. The older kids often get to see friends whom they used to live with when they were little at Bann Feung Fah, but who moved to other homes.
The noise of rustling bags, crunching on popcorn and belly giggles at the silly moments in the movie were so sweet. From the 3 to 4-year olds up to the 40-year olds, the ‘Ralph breaks the internet’ movie had fun, action and friendship, all in an age appropriate package.
The main female in the cast is a computer game character and she is programmed differently with glitching. When stressed, the glitches mean she behaves more like a child with attention difficulties. She makes friends with a whole load of princesses and helps them relax and work together. Also Ralph is a game character who breaks stuff and is clumsy due to his size and lack of co-ordination. This is like some of our young people. It was nice to have these kinds of characters building strong friendships and caring about each other in amongst the comedy moments when Ralph gets stuck in boxes or cars.
Some of the little ones were not heavy enough to keep the fold-up seats down at first, but they got lifted in and managed it. The seats were really plush and big.
The sweet ‘thank-you’s and thumbs up when asked if they had fun were priceless. For the children, it gave them one less day of the normal routine of being in the orphanage. The smiles were big on the journey back. It was well worth the planning and effort.
In the afternoon I tried hard to see all my children and put them through their paces regarding their stretching. I managed to bring them all out apart from Miss N and take Mr C to get a new NG feeding tube put in after he sneezed his out. Miss N gets grumpy when I have most of the group out and she has to wait her turn for attention. I did manage to sort her face cream in the ward though.
One sweet moment was when Mr B was standing independently holding the stander, Miss K was standing and Miss A and Mr G were in strollers around the stander, all playing with shaving foam. I put a bit on each of their noses and they either wiped it off themselves or Mr B knocked it off for them. All found watching each other funny and Miss A helped me clap the foam which makes little particles like snow float about. Mr B was holding on one-handed for much of this time, Miss K had her head up strong and was holding her body nice and even. Both Miss A and Mr G had their legs in better postures than usual. It was a nice time of togetherness.
Nicola Anderson.
Sounds like the busiest day ever. Glad all the planning went well and your kids had a good time later as well. Can’t wait to see them again in January and meet Miss A for the first time.