Trauma integration work is essential to creating places of safety and circles of support for both children and their families. Like many communities in South Africa, Vukuzenzele has struggled with high levels of collective and intergenerational trauma for decades. The legacy of apartheid carries on, still reaping the terrible seeds that were sown all those years ago. Our partnership with the Sp(i)eel arts therapies collective has helped us bring a trauma informed lens to every aspect of our work, deepening our capacities to acknowledge the trauma that lives on in many children and their families, and embrace the ways in which it might present in each individual. The main intention is to hold safe spaces of no judgement, tolerance and a deep understanding of feelings (that come and go).

As an organisation, we continue to develop our understanding of the impact of trauma on children, families and communities. Integrating this reality into all aspects of our ecosystem is fundamental and foundational to our work. We are deeply committed to offering loving trauma-informed care and support, so that children, adults, families and communities can find integration and healing, through which they deepen the capacities for learning and growth. We believe this healing, learning and growth can be further supported with access to a safe environment and with skilful and loving care from teachers and minders. We believe that our traumas, if worked with skilfully and lovingly, can become our greatest point of growth.

Again, our partnership with Sp(i)eel has taken this work to the next level, enabling us to meet the difficult challenges that inevitably arise with a finer quality of sensitivity and awareness, moving forward step by step with new creative and inclusive strategies to enable the long term success and sustainability of the project. We hold the understanding that communities have a deep knowledge of how to heal. The answers are already there, we just need to voice them and bring them alive. Our work with art therapy has been incredibly powerful and has opened up our next steps to bring true healing to a community that has been ripped apart for years.