Candle Sponsors 2020

Leipzig Festival of Lights

Scheckübergabe mit Oberbürgermeister Burkhard Jung in Neuen Rathaus: Die Erlöse aus der Aktion Kerzenpatenschaft im Rahmen des Lichtfest Leipzig 2020 ging zu gleichen Teilen an Clowns & Clowns e. V. und die Leipziger Klinikclowns — © LTM/Andreas Schmidt

Great joy on 12 October 2020 in the New Town Hall, when the proceeds of the Leipzig Festival of Lights initiative Kerzenpaten (candle sponsors) were handed over to the associations Clowns & Clowns and Leipzig Hospital Clowns.

Citizens, but also companies and institutions, were able to become candle sponsors in advance of the Leipzig Festival of Lights and symbolically purchase a candle. Representing all candle sponsors, members of the Youth Parliament lit the candles on the candles' podium '89 in the St Nicolas Church Yard on the evening of the 9ᵗʰ of October.

By resolution of the Board of Trustees for the Day of the Peaceful Revolution 1989, the proceeds from the candle sponsorship campaign amounting to 5,000 euros will be distributed in equal parts to Clowns & Clowns e. V. and the Leipzig Hospital Clowns.

On Monday, 12 October 2020, the Chair of the Board of Trustees, Lord Mayor Burkhard Jung, together with Volker Bremer, Managing Director of Leipzig Tourismus und Marketing GmbH, and Marit Schulz, Head of the Leipzig Festival of Lights, presented the cheques to the two associations.

Clowns & Clowns e. V.

The Leipzig Healthcare Clowns

Clowns & Clowns e. V. Leipzig is a non-profit association whose aim is to make the everyday lives of ill or care-dependent children and adults more colourful and joyful through visits from clowns.

Leipzig’s healthcare clowns visit elderly people in care homes, bring smiles to the faces of sick children or meet with people with disabilities. During their visits, they do not perform rehearsed routines but instead respond individually to the needs and mood of those they meet. They play and improvise with them, they chat or keep silent, they sing and make music, they encourage and awaken new courage for life.

The association bears the quality seal of the umbrella organisation Clowns in Medizin und Pflege Deutschland because its work follows strict ethical principles and the clowns’ work is based on artistic and professional training.

Clowns & Clowns e. V.

Leipzig Hospital Clowns

The Sunday Clowns

Die Leipziger Klinikclowns: Die Erlöse aus der Aktion Kerzenpatenschaft im Rahmen des Lichtfest Leipzig 2020 ging zu gleichen Teilen an Clowns & Clowns e. V. und die Leipziger Klinikclowns — © Daniel Senf

Laughter helps with healing! When a child laughs, they forget that they are ill. The non-profit association was founded almost 20 years ago. The association’s volunteer members, aged between 20 and 70, are actively involved. Among other things, they visit the two paediatric wards of Leipzig University Hospital, mainly on Sunday mornings.

The Bärenherz children’s hospice in Markkleeberg and the Ronald McDonald House Leipzig are also visited regularly. The Sunday Clowns are on site once or twice a month in smaller children’s clinics such as Bitterfeld, Wurzen, Naumburg, Zeitz or Weimar.

During the clown visits, the Leipzig Hospital Clowns always work in pairs. A rehearsed programme is never performed. Instead, a spontaneous play is created that sensitively responds to the needs of the young patients and adapts to their changing moods and individual health conditions.

The necessary skills – magic tricks, balloon modelling, face painting, making music, singing and juggling – were acquired by the Sunday Clowns in workshops and seminars. The Leipzig Hospital Clowns aim to bring a little joy into the often grey everyday life of the hospital, to encourage the children and to comfort them. But of course, the parents are also included in the clowns’ play.

Leipzig Hospital Clowns