Foundation
Black and Yellow children's MRI
BVB Foundation "leuchte auf" ("light up"), Sparda-Bank West and five senior team players have facilitated a unique MRI project for seriously ill children in Dortmund.
There has been a South Stand for the young patients in the Dortmund clinic since 12 December. A special projector covers all four walls in the MRI room with images of the "Yellow Wall". The children can choose from a large selection of videos to distract themselves, one of which being the BVB film "Home Game". The short film was produced by the Dortmund film maker Adolf Winkelmann. This was made possible financially by the BVB Foundation "leuchte auf", Sparta-Bank West and five senior team members, namely, André Schürrle, Shinji Kagawa, Marco Reus, Sven Bender (now at Bayer Leverkusen) and Sokratis Papastathopoulos. Between them, €30,000 was raised for the complex project.
"We would like to offer our profuse thanks to our long-term partner Sparda-Bank West and of course to all the players who made donations as well. This enabled us to realise this unique project in Dortmund: it is probably the only one of its kind in the whole world", said Marco Rühmann, Foundation Manager of "leuchte auf".
Film maker Adolf Winkelmann recounts how he and his team were put to the test by this extraordinary production. On the one hand, they needed to capture the atmosphere of the stadium, while on the other, its effect should be to calm children who are to spend long periods of time in the MRI machine, and who should lie as still as possible while being scanned. The transmission of the audio was a novelty for the film maker. Since the MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scanner reacts to the surrounding area magnetically, no metal components can be used. Therefore, normal headphones are out of the question. Instead, the audio is transmitted into the patient's ears using a sophisticated air pressure device. "We had to take that into consideration when processing the audio and adjust to it", explains Winkelmann.
Prior to the purchase of the children's MRI scanner, the young patients often had to be given an anaesthetic to keep them sufficiently calm and inert for the 30 minute long procedure. Since the children's MRI scanner has been in operation, the children have plenty of projections that will keep them relaxed to choose from. This means an anaesthetic can now be avoided most of the time. More than 1,000 children have since been scanned without stress or fear.
The children's MRI scanner itself is a project of the Westphalia Children's Centre and the Clinic for Radiology and Neuroradiology, and could be financed thanks to donations from the BVB foundation "leuchte auf", BVB fan clubs, companies, private persons and also through funding from the State of North Rhine Westphalia.
Comprehensive information about "leuchte auf" is available at: