October held more excitement for the Stanford children in the week leading up to the annual Festival of Community Arts. Creative Skills Factory’s children’s drama and music Showcase and Celebration performance was held on Saturday, the 5th October, and it was as magical as it was last year.
In the week leading up to the weekend festivities, the children were facilitated by their drama teacher, Raine Waring, and 3 additional facilitators who came to Stanford especially to work with the children in preparation for their big performance –
Jack Lerole Jnr. – a renowned South African musician and Creative Skills Factory’s music workshops mentor, worked with the children who play the Penny Whistles and performed with them at the showcase performance.
Mandiseli Maseti – puppeteer and puppet designer, director of children’s theater, set designer, photographer and documentary maker, and Cebolenkosi Siphesihle Zuma – dancer, drama teacher and musician.
The year is coming to an end and it is time for us to reflect as well as to celebrate – concluding our programmes, we reflect on all the lessons learnt, the accomplishments, the impact of our work in the Overstrand, what we will keep, what we will change and how we will grow – always evolving and striving to do better and to do more.
“Wherever you go, go with all your heart” – Confucius
Our drama group participating children have had an exciting year with teacher, Raine Waring – besides the weekly workshops, both the drama group and the music group, went on an outing together to Zwelihle in Hermanus to watch the Overstrand Schools Choir Celebration at the FynBos Festival.
Then on the 26th of October, the drama children joined Raine for a tree planting day arranged by BEZA, and planted 25 indigenous trees with the BEZA team [Born as the Earth Zen Academy – https://bornastheearth.com/].
After the planting, they had a picnic at Stanford Hills Estate, they performed songs and went on a horse ride offered by African Horse Company.
The day ended with all the happy students receiving their end-of-year Certificates of Accomplishment.
The Die Kop children learning to play and read music using the recorder with musician Manuel Jardine and the penny whistles with Jack Lerole Jnr., also had a magical musical journey this year.
They performed playing the recorder at the annual Cape town Jazzathon at the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront in front of a very large audience, as well as with the Zwelihle Young Brothers at our annual Children’s Art Exhibition.
The Die Kop children also enjoyed the outing along with the drama children to Zwelihle for the Overstrand Schools Choir event and they practiced every week with their mentor Vuyokasi Siza, to grow their musical skills.
Maestro, Jack Lerole Jnr. presented the children with their Certificates of Accomplishment when he was in Stanford to mentor the children, in person, during the October school holidays. These children can be very proud of how they have grown as a group and as young musicians.
Local artist, Alison Martin and her team, facilitated the children of Stanford in creating a colourful, beautiful mural on the netball court wall next to the Stanford Community Hall during the October school holidays in the week’s activities leading up to our Showcase and Celebration event.
In collaboration with TILE (The Institute for Leadership and Education) – Creative Skills Factory’s team of 5 community facilitators who are trained to run the activities offered to the children every day after school at the Learning Tree, are incorporating Sophrology exercises each day for 10 weeks – to document the impact it has on the children, and on themselves.
We call it Mind Body activities and the children love it.
The exercises are done with the children at the start of each workshop session for approximately 10 minutes and include breathing, body scanning (awareness) using bean bags, tension release and muscle relaxation, also, affirmations with the children.
The next school holidays are just around the corner, we are planning to make these EXTRA special for the children who we work with.
We are going to have a puppet show and many other wonderful activities for them, and we want to give every child a Lucky Packet to take home with them as an end-of-year treat.
At this time of the year, we do put out a special call for support – usually via our Newsletter sent by email – because the end of the year school holidays is special, and the children wait for their treats…
If you are reading our blog and wish to assist, of course at any time of the year, you can donate by navigating to the “Donate” page on our website and clicking on the link to our Pay Fast account.
or directly into our bank account –
Nedbank Limited
Account name: Creative Skills Factory NPC
Type: Current account
Account number: 115 897 0595
Branch code: 198765
