‘Snoezelen’, play and experience with Tunify

As well as this, the non-profit organisation offers all sorts of additional services and activities. There is the Oasis experience centre, where Tunify plays in all 3 rooms. Jolien Heylen, team leader for guest infrastructure, is happy to tell us more about it.

The range of activities at Het GielsBos is incredibly broad and open for an equally broad target group. As well as the Oasis experience centre, you’ll find a multi-purpose room, a sports hall, swimming pool, projects with horses and plenty of other interesting activities. Het GielsBos is all too happy to open everything to external visitors.

However, that doesn’t mean that everything is completely accessible to anyone. The target groups of Het GielsBos include people with disabilities who benefit from the adjustments that have been made to, for example, the swimming pool. This includes families with children who have a disability, students from special needs schools, other institutions, residential care centres, and so forth.

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Tunify music in 3 experience rooms

Het GielsBos also receives gifts from sympathisers. This has made it possible to renovate and update the Oasis experience centre. Every aspect of the complex is state of the art, music included. Jolien explains: ‘The Silent Oasis is a snoezelen room, or controlled multisensory environment, with 4 cocoons. One of them has a vibrating floor with extra bass amplifiers that let you really feel the music. The music is peaceful background music that relaxes you.’

‘Weight and movement are central to the Experience Oasis,’ Jolien continues. ‘The music can be a little more up-tempo here. And in the Play Oasis, you can dance and act out plays. Then we choose musical numbers that are suited to theatrical plays. It’s all possible with Tunify.’

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From K3 to schlagers

Het GielsBos has only just discovered Tunify. Jolien: ‘With the renovations to Oasis, we wanted to have a broad range of music on hand. A lot of visitors have very diverse music preferences. One wants to hear K3 children’s pop, while the other would prefer to hear sentimental schlager music. ‘

‘As an individual, you immediately think about Spotify,’ muses Jolien. ‘But you’re not permitted to use that if you also open the spaces to external visitors. So we looked for an alternative and found Tunify. The player is very intuitive. All our age groups use it now. And we’ve noticed an enormous difference in choices compared to the couple of CDs we used to use.’

High praise

Everything in the Oasis experience centre has undergone a major upgrade. The spaces themselves, the devices such as the vibrating floor and care-robot Zora, all the way through to the music. This makes an impression on visitors. ‘The reaction from other services is often the same,’ explains Jolien. ‘The first time, you hear them say, “Wow, we don’t have that!”. We are always happy to welcome them.’

Are you active in the care sector, do you have a son or daughter with a disability, or do you volunteer for an organisation? Make sure you take a look at www.hetgielsbos.be or call them for a further explanation about their full activity range.