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Serious illness in a family brings around many changes and uncertainties. When a family member is seriously ill, it does not affect just the person dealing with the illness, but it affects all the family members. Naturally, the family member who is ill requires more attention and support; thus all the family members need to make adjustments to find a new balance. Most of the time, the ones who are supporting the family are the ones who are left behind. This project’s main focus was on young people who are dealing with trauma and difficult situations. A parent or sibling needs support through this rough time. The Karl Vella Foundation (Malta), Prisms (Malta), Istanbul Avrupa Arastirmalari Dernegi (Turkey), and Zavod Anima Vita (Slovenia), worked to provide emotional, psychological, and social support to young people who are dealing with such situations.

Indeed, the main objectives of this project were to:

• Offer support to young persons who are going through a rough patch in their lives due to a serious illness within their family

• Share experiences with senior citizens and share values and coping skills

• Offer a space for young people to express their emotions

• Use art and storytelling as a method of expression and coping mechanism

• Create innovative online tools so that the stories and pictures produced will be used in schools and youth centers so that more young people can benefit from it.
   

Through this project, these young people were given space where they could channel their worries, anger, frustration, fears, and other issues that are essential to them. The young people could express themselves through the art of storytelling and drawing. Wrinkles and Twinkles offered participants the support and motivation needed to tackle these difficulties and embed them in the meaning-making process which is vital for all adolescents.

The young people, throughout this project, have interviewed the senior citizens and asked them about the values which they see essential. The senior citizens spoke about their experiences and how they overcame obstacles in their lives. This instilled a mentor-learner relationship. All the stories created throughout this project are based on the interviews which the young people conducted with elderly persons. These have translated into stories that were written by the young people themselves. These stories were used as a basis to create the Toolkit educators can use with the students/young people they work with.