A Free Bird

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A Free Bird is a non-profit art organization that is dedicated to helping young people of age between 6 and 18 affected by cancer, fight their disease through the therapeutic of the arts. It is based in New Jersey and New York and has its headquarters in New York. It provides arts education and mentorship programs to youths who are battling cancer and those who are in remission. The aim is to help the young children who are affected by cancer pursue their artistic goals despite the challenges they face in life. This essay will give a brief distribution of the A Free Bird organization and the organization vision for positive change. A free Bird was founded in January in the year 2009. It was founded by Liteman, Godni Amir. The founder Godni is a New York based actor and makeup artist. He was motivated to create the organization after his teacher’s husband was diagnosed with cancer. He was determined to continue with his long career in theater, music and dance. The strong willing to continue with his made him experience the healing of the arts (A Free Bird 2014). Godni was able to bring solace and comfort to his teacher’s family when they needed it most though his music. Today, he is determined to bring the healing power of the art to more people who are suffering from the cancer. He realized that many young people give up their artist career and other career when they are affected with cancer and especially during the diagnosis and treatment period. Godni formed the organization, hoping to create a healing artistic environment for pediatric cancer patients (A Free Bird 2014). A Free Bird has a clear vision that is based on the objective of forming the organization. They vision as it state it is to ‘empower each bird to fly free’. The term bird is used to mean a youngest while the term flying free is used to refer to the ability to achieve ones goals despite challenges in life. Gondi felt that cancer was holding youngest against achieving their goals especially in art. He felt that with enough training, the children could be able to continue pursuing their career even after suffering from cancer (A Free Bird 2014). Apparently, the organization is dedicated to empower youngster with strength and willpower to fight their disease. Though it focuses on the youngest in artist field who are suffering from cancer, it is not limited to this group only. They state in their mission that the cancer is a disease that has the ability to sap the energy of some of the strong children and consequently denying them the chance to advance their career. The organization is therefore, committed to helping the children keep their spirits strong and never lose hope despite their conditions. The mission indicated that the organization plans to work with nurses and doctors to help these youngest to overcome their hindrances. A Free Bird is involved in a number of regular operations that are designed to advance their vision for positive change. The operations involve educating and training people, working with medical professionals to enhance the treatment of the children suffering from cancer and initiating programs to reach and empower youngest suffering from the disease. The activities are contained in the three programs used by the organization; Free, Dream and fight Free programs (NYC Service 2014). Free program focus on the needs of the children that have been remission from cancer. It supports artistic progress of the children that may have been affected during the child’s hospitalization. It used various artistic devices such as music and poem to communicate complex feelings that circumvent the children affected by various diseases such as cancer (A Free Bird 2014). The cancer survivors are connected to lessons that teach them various artistic styles such as music, graphic design, singing, poetry and acting among other activities they enjoy doing. The organization also connects these survivors with mentors who can inspire and challenge them to keep their strength, despite the desperate time they undergo during their medical operation. The mentors range from educational, career and artistic mentorship that help rejuvenate the lost energy and hope during their medication. All the mentors are professional who are able to guide the children in their pursuits for good life. In addition to searching and connecting the children with mentors, the organization also searches for opportunities these children can utilize to develop themselves to better persons. Such opportunities include contests, grants, and publishers among other outlets. The program therefore, provides an opportunity for the cancer survivors to start another chapter in their life after suffering and undergoing a life disappointing events (A Free Bird 2014). Fight free is another regular operation in the organization that aimed at brings a positive change. The program deals with operations that are aim at helping the children that are currently undergoing medication. The organization provides tutorial to the children in the medication as a way of encouraging them and giving them strength and power to overcome their illness. It collaborates with the various high learning institutions’ art students and cultural institutions to boast the children creative energies by acting as an outlet and giving them hope of good life despite the challenges they are undergoing (A Free Bird 2014). The children under medication are paired with tutors who provide one by one guideline on how the children can develop themselves while still undergoing the medications. A free Bird works is currently developing a partnership with child life specialists in various hospitals in New Jersey and New York who will work with it to implement this program. The organization aims at achieving this by ensuring that at the end of the medication, the child under the treatment will have developed an artistic work presented to the public through various means of communication. The organization believes that by engaging child in artistic work helps to cure cancer as evident in the case of it founder (A Free Bird 2014). The last program referred to as the Dream contains all the operations that focus on all the children; under medication and the one in remission from cancer. The children are inspired to persuade their own dreams in artistic work, career and educational dreams. The children through the organization are engaged in various artistic activities and view work of different great artistic found in theatres and other places. The program brings the children, their parents/guardian, the organization staff and various mentors together during the special day. These activities are designed to advance the vision for positive change. They are designed to bring hopes to the children who, due to the cancer disease, lose hope and energy to go on with life. A Free Bird organization’s activities have been boasted by the external forces that act in the favor of the organization. The forces include international and local organizations that fight for eradiation of cancer, hospitals and community environment and government efforts. However, it activities is facing a major challenge of lack of enough financial resources. As a non-profit organization, financial resource has always impeded on it operations. Cancer is a major challenge that is facing the world today. This has seen a rise in various non-government organizations formed to help eradicate the menace. These organizations work hand in hand with the other organizations that share similar agendas. International organizations such as WHO are some of the organizations that have focused their attention on this problem. A Free Bird share similar objectives with these organizations (Vardiman 2002). From time to time, these organizations boast the A Free Bird effort by various means such as financial help and educating people about the cancer including the children. Hospital are always more than willing to work with other organizations in treatment especially in treatment of major diseases such as cancer that cannot be cured completely through the medication offered in hospital. As a result, the organization find it convenient and helpful to work with the hospital environment in helping these youngest suffering from the disease (Morton 2008). The community is also ready to help organizations that help people who have lost hope or suffering in the community. The organization activities are also boosted by government activities. The USA government is concerned over the increase in the case of cancer disease (Pories, 2009). The government has initiated measures to mitigate the problem and support the people who are already affected. These measures and initiatives help to enhance the activities of the A Free Bird. Some activities such as campaigning for the eradication and treatment of the cancer have an indirect effects while measures such as giving financial resources to this organization has a direct influence on the its performance. Lastly, the facts that the organization is not for profit organization impede the organization’s operations. A Free Bird does not operate on isolation. It operates on environment where it has to incur expenses. It incurs cost in searching for mentors, tutors and educating the children and the entire community about the vision. The people are not expected to pay for the services. This is a major challenge since the organizations has to operate with the limited financial resources from donors and other well-wishers who submit some financial assistance to the organizations (Pories, 2009). This essay has given a brief distribution of the A Free Bird organization and the organization vision for positive change. A Free Bird was founded in 2009 by Liteman, Godni Amir. It is based in New York and New Jersey and has its headquarters in the former. It vision is to see a world where youngster pursue their career dreams without interruption of diseases such as cancer. The organization has come up with programs such as Fight Free, Dream and Free that are designed to see the organization achieves the vision for positive changes. Some of the forces that are enhancing it activities include the US government efforts to eradicate cancer disease, the favorable hospital environment and non-government organizations that deal with the cancer menace. However, the organization is facing financial problem because it requires money but does not charge for the services it provides.

Reference
A Free Bird™ is a non-profit arts organization dedicated helping young people [Web log post]. (n.d.). Retrieved on 6th April 2014 from http://www.afreebird.org/.
Morton, I. 2008, Cancer testing technology and saccharin : Office of Technology Assessment. Food Policy 5(4) 20-57.
NYC Service - Volunteer in New York City and help make a difference in the greatest city in the world! - A Free Bird Organization. (n.d.). Retrieved on 7th April 2014 from http://www.nycservice.org/organizations/index.php?org_id=1955
Pories, S., 2009, Cancer. Santa Barbara, Calif: Greenwood Press.
Vardiman, J., 2002,The World Health Organization (WHO) classification of the myeloid neoplasms. Blood. 10 (3) -48-78