The Widyatama Art Therapy Center was established as a representation of the concern of the Widyatama Foundation, which was pioneered by Mrs. Koesbandrijah, founder of the Widyatama Foundation, for the education of the nation’s children, including people with disabilities in Indonesia, whose numbers are increasing every day. In addition, the Widyatama Art Therapy Center is dedicated to the arts and design. Over five years of research conducted by Dr. Anne Nurfarina, S.Sn., M.Sn. (Dean of the Faculty of Visual Communication Design at Widyatama University) led to the discovery of the Sensation Method, a method of creative sensory stimulation and stimulus formation that incorporates aspects of art, namely audio, visual, and motor skills.
The Widyatama Art Therapy Center (ATC) concept is indeed CSR, but its management is professional, meaning that volunteers are required to be professional so that they can support themselves. In addition, a cross-subsidy concept is applied between students from economically capable families and those who are not. It is hoped that this concept can maintain the sustainability of concrete education for people with disabilities. Concrete in the sense that they have the right to be equipped with knowledge that is useful for their lives, not just memorizing, filling out worksheets, or acquiring basic skills. It does not use the national learning pattern because the concept is abstract. The ATC concept is vocational education, where people with disabilities are able to work, understand simple management, and have an entrepreneurial mindset.
One of the divisions of the Widyatama Art Therapy Center is Media Therapy, a division that develops tools to help children with special needs (ABK) communicate through an artistic approach. One of the works currently being developed in collaboration with the Multimedia Study Program of the Faculty of Communication Design at Widyatama University is Therapen. This is a drawing tool with a speech stimulus concept. Previously, DKV only focused on content, but now its applications can also be developed independently by students of the Faculty of Communication Design at Widyatama University.
