OntdEK is an applied arts programme for self-empowerment. It combines storytelling, embodiment and projective techniques to create opportunities for creative expression through which participants can explore their world and themselves, equipping them with the tools and confidence to navigate challenges and embrace opportunities. The programme is trauma-informed and develops soft skills to strengthen individual and community resilience. For more information, contact: info@ontdek.org.za

GroundSpring Theatre is an improvisatory theatre show, where audience members’ real life stories provide the material for the actors to instantly transform into a theatrical event South African stories are a powerful resource. They bring people together to create a healing dialogue, allowing us to deeply experience our common humanity. This is GroundSpring’s commitment: to challenge familiar perspectives through our storytelling work, so that future possibilities can be imagined, and personal and social narratives can start to transform.

Our aims are to:

• Offer a platform for dialogue in a variety of contexts.

• Create a space that supports community building through the sharing of a resource that is common to all of us: our stories.

• Create a space for the honouring of memories through sharing them with one’s community.

• Celebrate the storyteller in each of us.

Time To Thrive is a youth leadership program that combines art therapy with coaching, utilizing a combination of visual arts, directive art therapy, drama, play and movement, coaching tools and written reflections, breathwork and mindfulness. It is a unique and exciting approach, engaging youth through creative learning. The main goals are to keep kids in school, and to teach life skills and soft skills, uplifting individuals by building EQ. The main outcomes are resilience and confidence, as well as a motivation to learn, grow and achieve, to aim high and work to create new futures for themselves. The central theme is that education is key, their key for empowerment. The intention is to equip learners with leadership skills that can have potential far-reaching consequences.

We want learners to strive to Thrive; it’s time, Time to Thrive.

Through Frontline Support we make use of online platforms to provide access to the arts therapies to individuals who would normally not have access to mental health services such as art therapy. We are a group of SANATA (South African National Arts Therapies Association) and CoP (Arts in Psychosocial Support - Community of Practice) members offering a national service for frontline workers and marginalised members of the public suffering additional stress and risk as a consequence of the COVID-19 lockdown.

We aim to assist any individual in under-resourced communities who has been negatively affected by the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown. We aim to provide both individual and group teletherapy and in-person group sessions. Lockdown restricted everyone’s movement and put a significant amount of strain on our healthcare workers, together with exacerbating the existing psychosocial issues in our country. Joblessness, poverty, hunger, and gender-based violence are but a few of the existing issues that added to the complexity of the ramifications of lockdown.

To date we have had approximately 300 beneficiaries received crisis management services/therapy interventions, varying from individuals receiving online therapy and support sessions to groups of nursing staff at a government hospital in Johannesburg (Gauteng), 2 groups of 8 teenagers in a high school in Paarl (Western Cape) and a group of 25 artists performing an extended sit-in protest action about the disappearance of government COVID-19 relief funds intended for them.

To find out how you can be involved feel free to contact me for more information.

Nethaniëlle Mattison

081 361 3294

Founding member of Frontline Support

The Golden Ratio is where art meets science, and that is exactly what I am passionate about – using a strategic and informed approach to create designs, content and online marketing campaigns that work in an individual context, as well as part of a bigger picture – pure gold.  Whether you need someone to make something special for a single occasion or a more hands-on approach with a campaign for your business, l would love to be a part of your story. Visit my website for more information at www.goldenratodesigns.co.za!