How art helps Nepal’s war victims

IN January this year Mobile Art Therapy Studio (MATS) travelled to the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, to work with various charitable organisations.

Set up by myself and Gosia Lawnicki and based in Cork, MATS is a non-profit organisation which works creatively with vulnerable groups all over the world in order to transform traumatic personal experience for the benefit of affected communities.

Although it received little coverage in Western media, the conflict in Nepal between government forces and Maoist insurgents lasted for 10 years from 1996. A peace agreement was signed, but Nepal is still politically unstable and is one of the poorest countries in the world.