Humanising the hospital experience through humour and emotional support

tiritaclown.cat | «Humanising the hospital experience through humour and emotional support»

Tirita Clown has been working inside hospitals since 2015. When they decided to establish their own digital presence, the .cat domain was the most coherent choice for who they are and where they work.

Walking into a hospital room and managing to make someone going through a difficult time smile, relax, or simply feel less alone. That is the work Tirita Clown does — and explaining it in a photograph or a text is no easy task. But through their website, they try.

We spoke with the association to understand how an organisation that works face to face, in hospital corridors, has built a digital presence that reflects its essence, and why the .cat domain plays an important role in all of this.

How does your project work?

«Tirita Clown is an association that works to humanise the hospital experience through humour, play and emotional support. Since 2015, our professional clowns visit hospitalised children and adults, as well as their families, to bring moments of joy, calm and relief in situations that are often very difficult.»

They add: «It’s not just about making people laugh. Every intervention adapts to the moment and to the person in front of us.»

How did Tirita Clown come about, and when did you decide you needed your own digital presence?

The association was founded in 2015 with the aim of bringing the world of clowning into hospitals. From the start, they knew their work was about direct, in-person action — but they also saw they needed a window to the outside world: «A way to explain what we did, make ourselves known, reach new hospitals and also make visible a job that is often hidden behind hospital walls.»

Why the .cat domain and not another extension?

The decision was not purely about identity. «The .cat domain seemed especially interesting to us for several reasons. On one hand, it identified us with our language, our culture and the territory where we carry out our work.» But there was a second important factor: «The .cat domain offers many advantages and facilities for organisations, especially in economic terms. We are an association that devotes a great deal of effort and resources to our direct work in hospitals, so finding an option that allowed us to have a professional digital presence while remaining economically accessible was an important factor in our decision.»

«It wasn’t just a question of identity. The fact that .cat was committed to supporting organisations and helping them establish a presence online also weighed heavily.»

The domain was registered in 2018, three years after Tirita Clown was founded. Why then?

«When we started, our priority was to get the project off the ground and do the work in hospitals. Over time we began to see the importance of having a more consolidated digital presence that was coherent with the organisation. In 2018 we decided to register the .cat domain because it represented us very well. We are an organisation rooted in our territory, we work in Catalan, and we wanted that identity to be present online too.»

Does the .cat domain give you credibility with the hospitals and families who find you online?

«We believe it does, above all because it helps convey who we are and where we come from. The .cat domain reinforces that identity and makes our digital presence coherent with the way we work and with the territory where we are present.»

What challenges have you faced in managing your digital communications?

The main challenge is inherent to their work: «Our work happens above all face to face. We are not a digital organisation — we are an organisation that works with people.» Working in a sensitive environment also means being especially careful about privacy. But digital communication also allows them to do something essential: «Give visibility to the humanisation of hospitals and explain that humour, play and emotional support can also be part of the healthcare experience. And that is a message we believe is very much worth sharing.»

A laugh, a territory, a .cat

Tirita Clown’s work happens in hospital corridors, but their website is the window that lets the outside world see it. When they decided how to exist online, they chose an address that would identify them within their territory and in their language.

The strength of .cat is the strength of its people. Thank you, Tirita Clown, for being part of it!

Visit tiritaclown.cat!

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