Our Story

How it started: Art Insights

Dr Cynthia Holland has left few doors unopened when it comes to helping others.

Family is an important thing to mother of two, Dr Cynthia Holland. After working and studying around the world, earning degrees in social work, law and medical research, Cynthia believes nothing can shake the family unit like serious or terminal illness.

"The family unit is just so, so important," she says.

"Chronic or terminal illness really threatens that. It can be devastating. It can really threaten the emotional safety of children."

Cynthia is now returning to her roots as an art teacher, using the healing and illustrative properties of art to provide a window into the minds of children creating it. Through the My Kite Will Fly program, run out of the Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne, Dr Holland uses photographs, art and drawing to provide children with an expressive medium in which to express their emotions and fears about their parents battle with cancer.

"When the kids are seeing their mother going through chemotherapy and having drug treatments and all those sorts of things, I become involved with them directly," she says.

"Kids sometimes have got very bad causal connection. They will say things like, 'I was fighting with my brother Billy and now my mum is sick'. So we clear all of that up."