Juegaterapia Foundation inaugurates children’s cinema at the IPO in Lisbon, in partnership with Disney
The initiative of the Juegaterapia Foundation takes the magic of cinema to children undergoing treatment at the Portuguese Institute of Oncology in Lisbon so that they can enjoy this space while waiting for exams, treatments or consultations.
The Juegaterapia Foundation, a charity institution that supports children in cancer treatment through entertainment, in partnership with The Walt Disney Company Portugal, inaugurated its first children’s cinema in a hospital in Portugal. This cinema opened in the Pediatric wing of the Portuguese Institute of Oncology of Lisbon (IPO Lisbon), is the result of the revenues obtained through the sale of Disney’s Baby Pelones in Portugal, a set of dolls inspired by children who fight against cancer.
In partnership with The Walt Disney Company, the Juegaterapia Foundation has already developed and implemented two similar spaces in Spain, and now inaugurates this in Portugal, allowing children and young people admitted to the IPO in Lisbon to have the experience of going to the cinema without leaving the hospital.
The cinema, designed by Cousi Interiorismo studio, has state-of-the-art audio and video technologies, and celebrates the 90th anniversary of Donald Duck, inspired by this character and his partner, Margarida, to give life to the decoration of the room.
The room will also feature a PS4 video game console for children and young people to play with each other in this space and has 16 seats that can be reclined for greater comfort, as many will watch the films during their chemotherapy treatments on an outpatient basis.
Esther Pereira, director of Humanization of Hospitals at Juegaterapia, explains that “the idea is not just that children watch a film as if they were in their room. We want them to go to the movies in their hospital and make this a unique experience for them. When you enter this room, you will feel that you are travelling to other worlds and living other experiences. Our goal is always to make them distracted and forget that they are sick children in the hospital. We are convinced that this is beneficial for their recovery, because “chemotherapy playing starts to fly”.
All the Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars classics can be seen in the new cinema room through Disney+ which will be available for children to access some of the world’s greatest hits in film and television. At the inauguration, hospitalized children watched “Wish: The Power of Desires”, one of Disney’s latest hits.
Margarida Morais, Director of Marketing and Communication at The Walt Disney Company in Portugal, says “At Disney we seek to create experiences and special moments that bring the magic of our stories to children who are going through a period of hospitalization, thus contributing to a decrease in anxiety and fear levels associated with these situations. It is with great satisfaction that today we inaugurate this space in Lisbon, in partnership with the Juegaterapia Foundation and the IPO, so that more hospitalized children and young people can enjoy moments of relaxation through their favourite films and series.”
Eva Falcão, Chairman of the Board of Directors of IPO Lisboa, underlines that this is another step on the way to humanizing the hospital environment. “We believe that some humanization initiatives in health provide moments of abstraction of the disease that are highly valued by patients and their families, but also by health professionals, which is why we institutionalized a humanization of care commission at the IPO Lisboa. The cinema hall now inaugurated is a structure that meets this goal: to have a space of fun and evasion, designed for children, and where films suitable for the age of the spectators will be projected, providing them moments of joy and fun.”
This initiative of the Juegaterapia Foundation began seven years ago with the creation of a cinema hall at the Gregorio Marañón Hospital in Madrid (2015). This was followed by the opening of cinemas in other hospitals in Spain, namely at Hospital de Burgos (2019), at Hospital Miguel Servet in Zaragoza (2019), at Valladolid University Hospital (2019), at Torrecárdenas University Hospital in Almería (2022) and at the Reina Sofía Hospital in Córdoba (2022).
About the Juegaterapia Foundation:
Juegaterapia Foundation helps children with cancer through games and the humanization of hospitals. Donate consoles and tablets to hospitals and distribute them in pediatric oncology rooms so that children can spend their chemotherapy cycles playing games and forgetting their disease. In Spain, it has delivered consoles and tablets to 76 hospitals and also to hospitals in Portugal, Morocco, Colombia, El Salvador, Afghanistan, India, Guinea and Guatemala. They also reform and humanize pediatric hospital stays. ” El Jardín de mi hospi” is an initiative of Juegaterapia, a pioneer in Spain, which consists of recovering the roofs of hospitals and transforming them into gardens so that all hospitalized children can play outdoors. He has already built five hospitals in La Paz, 12 in Octubre, Niño Jesús and Gregorio Marañón in Madrid, and another in La Fe in Valencia. The sixth is already being built at the Maternal Children’s Hospital in Malaga.
The Baby Pelones, an original idea of the Juegaterapia Foundation, are “the most beautiful dolls in the world” because they are inspired and are a tribute to children who fight against the disease. They wear a headscarf, with drawings of friends of the Foundation as Alejandro Sanz, Shakira, Laura Pausini, Richard Gere, David Bisbal, Manuel Carrasco Sebastián Yatra and several children in treatment against cancer. Since its launch in 2014, more than one million seven hundred thousand units have been sold. They cost 14.95 euros and can be purchased in Spain and Portugal at Toys R’Us, Gocco and Women’Secret online and in Spain at Correos, Juguettos, Ilunion, Carrefour, Fnac, Juguetilandia, Alcampo, Wow, Dufus, Gocco and many stores, pharmacies and service stations, as well as in the online store of the Juegaterapia Foundation.
About The Walt Disney Company RSC:
This initiative is part of The Walt Disney Company EMEA’s social program, where we work in partnership with other organizations to develop emotional resilience. Together, we bring the power of our brand, stories and characters to inspire and create “Memorable Moments” for those who need them most.
About IPO Lisboa
The IPO Lisboa is a health unit with a century of experience in cancer treatment, study and research. Being the main Portuguese oncology hospital, it provides highly specialized and differentiated health care, revealing quality indicators identical to those of the best international reference centres.
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