A Growing Community of Community Art Facilitators

"I never imagined that art could be a form of therapy for children and adults - especially the use of clay and painting...when I go back to Zimbabwe I am going to implement this with the children over there, there is nothing like this in my country and it’s a new concept for us",

says Community Art Facilitator, Tokozile Dhodho. Tokozile moved to South Africa with her husband and 3 children a year ago. She has a background in counselling and psychology and used to work with children with HIV before she came to South Africa. She now facilitates at her church and with our very own Love Bugs project in Capricorn healing art classes three times a week. Tokozile started her journey of becoming a Community Art Facilitator (CAF) with the Butterfly Art Project (BAP) in 2019.

Since the beginning of the year we saw 156 more adults walk through our doors and join our Training Programme and the network of CAFs.

The Butterfly Art Projects’ Training Programme is made up of a diverse team of 3 people and contracted trainers for our varied modules that can equip a CAF to have all the necessary skills to bring psychosocial support through art to South Africa. We are proud to have partnered with other organisations and specialists of their field to enrich our curriculum. Let us introduce you to their names and training modules they bring: Art in Youth Development developed by Zain Nazier (who was hired full time this year by BAP as our Mentoring Liaison); Jacqui Farr, who developed and trains our How To Become an Effective Mentor; Vincent Meyburgh from Jungle Theatre is facilitating his Healing Power of Stories module, Melanie Godfrey from Foundations for Life owns the Social and Emotional Learning module, Kseniya Filinova-Bruton from Educape teaches the Drama for Personal Development module, Mara Fleischer facilitates our Sustainability and Income Generation module, Sanet Visser and Aveleigh Gateman are BAP trained trainers for our Creative Interaction module, and Early beginnings, Zaid Philander and Bianca from I Scream & Red facilitate the Handcraft Module, Charlene Jefferies recently developed the Traumatic-Stress Relief module and trains two training sessions for the Child development module next to Akhona Busiswe Njokweni, Nicole Sparks, Angela Hough Maxwell and Adrienne Milne, Tamryn Coats and Helen O´Hagan.

Vicki Badenhorst, one of our CAFs that attended the Handcraft, Art in Youth Development and Sustainability and Income Generation module said:

"The Sustainability and Income Generation training module is specific to aiding people and allowing them to find alternative ways to financially aid their art projects. Now facilitators like me can find ways to sell items that we make with our kids to pay for the running (costs) of the art classes. It is such a great initiative and skill (building) and adds to a CAF’s toolbox.“ .

The Training Programme success must be credited to the faculty members and partnerships we have made. Our most recent partnership with Casa Labia Cultural Centre contributes hugely to our wellbeing and happiness on all levels by providing for BAP office space, a most beautiful training venue with ocean views and the sounds of waves rolling into False Bay and funding for our activities.

If you are interested in becoming a part of our Community Art Facilitator Network and BAP family, visit our training page , or contact Howard Williams on howard@butterflyartproject.org.

Plant of Potential: The Early Beginnings module introduces participants to watercolour and the importance of working with watercolour paint wet on wet with children.

Creative Interaction module: The group mandala encourages participants to work together to create a collaborative artwork.

Sustainability and Income Generation: Participants could learn how to reuse and upcycle materials for product development and production to generate income. Here we have Sandra, who made a mobile out of upcycled plastics!

Maria sharing her happiness about her successful self-portrait during the BAP Method module last March. In this module participants experience the healing power of art themselves. The task of painting a self-portrait creates a crises and inner conflict what will be worked through by self-observation, self-reflection and peer learning over 8 sessions.