The 'L'enfant@l'hôpital' ('chrildren in hospital') association : letting sick children dream

For more than ten years, the 'L'enfant@l'hôpital' association has brought culture to children throughout France who are sick or handicapped, and are in hospital using Internet access. Travellers and academics, sometimes from the other side of the world, can chat with them, and the children, whose curiosity is aroused, become interested again in reading and writing. These communications with the children are conducted by young student teachers, students from the military school, the Ecole Polytechnique, carrying out their national service, and those from other higher education institutions criss-crossing France by train in order to help children at their bedside or in their classrooms in the hospital. Teachers rely on these meetings to avoid any breaks in their pupils' curriculum, to whet their appetite for learning, to stimulate their artistic senses, and to make them feel less isolated and less tired. The association visits three thousand sick children every year. It is now considering offering its services to prisons for minors, and to school classes in inner city areas where there are sometimes itinerant populations…