“The sustainability of our support depends largely on a holistic approach.”

After 15 years of intensive project work at Moving Child gGmbH, we have accumulated a wealth of experience and a solid body of knowledge regarding our funding criteria and the selection of suitable projects. This experience has shown that the sustainability of our support measures is largely determined by holistic approaches.

A qualified and interdisciplinary team with expertise in education, therapy, and medicine can develop a comprehensive support program for children and adolescents that specifically promotes the processing of traumatic experiences and enables their long-term psychological stabilization and reintegration into a healthy developmental trajectory.

Numerous neuroscientific studies demonstrate the central importance of free play for child development. Through free play, children process their emotions and develop the ability to express them. Physical activity contributes significantly to cognitive performance, supports the brain’s neural plasticity, and fosters creative expression.

At the same time, it is evident that children today have increasingly fewer opportunities for self-directed play. Instead, they are often under constant adult supervision or spend a significant portion of their time in front of screens from an early age. These conditions offer only limited opportunities for developmentally beneficial experiences.

A lack of physical activity has negative consequences in most cases: Among other things, it contributes to the development of obesity, impairs social development, and is linked to behavioral issues such as attention deficits and hyperactivity, as well as psychological stress and even symptoms of depression.

Our organization is specifically committed to countering the current trend of a lack of self-directed spaces for play and physical activity. Through creative programs in school settings as well as in after-school projects – such as circus workshops, vacation trips, or nature-based activities – we aim to reconnect children and adolescents with nature experiences and playful interaction.

We particularly support projects that go beyond academic, linguistic, or knowledge-based instruction and prioritize children’s physical activity. The focus is not exclusively on performance-oriented goals, but on integrating play, movement, and creativity into nature-based learning and experiential environments. Scientific findings demonstrate that play, physical activity, and artistic and musical activities have a lasting positive impact on the social, emotional, and cognitive development of children and young people.