Workshops provide needed Skills Capacity Training to Care workers

By Amelda Brand

Zakheni is developing skills in care workers working in a variety of non-profit and community based organisations around South Africa. Our three innovative skills development programmes are the FireMaker Project, the Wellbeing Workshop and our new Beyond Words Workshop for Mental Health Professionals.

Zakheni has been offering the FireMaker workshops since 2003. Now, eight years later, five drama and art therapists work nationally to deliver quality skills development for child care workers enabling them to use the creative arts in psychosocial support of vulnerable children.

This year we completed our series of four workshops at Umthombo Service for Street Children in Durban. We have one final workshop to go.

At the @Heart Organisation based at clinics providing HIV counseling and support in Stellenbosch. We also ventured into the rural Eastern Cape to work in partnership with the Camdeboo Hospice in Graaff Reinet, developing hospice workers and counsellors. (To read “Zakheni Reaches the Camdeboo” an article written by Dramatherapst Sian Palmer, click this link http://www.zakheni.org.za/news/24-zakheni-reaches-the-camdeboo.html).

We are excited to return to Zimbabwe in September to run further workshops with our three partner organisations there; Simukai (Mutare), OASIS and Streets Ahead (Harare), these organisations are doing fantastic work with vulnerable children living on the street, those affected by HIV/Aids andorphans.

In a report about the FireMaker Introduction Workshop from a Camdeboo Hospice staff member in Graaf Reinet it was mentioned: “Participants are hungry for ‘tools’ to use with vulnerable children.”

Through our Wellbeing Project we have had the privilege of working with a variety of organisations, developing care workers’ capacity to manage the incredibly challenging work they are faced with and so help to prevent the high incidence of burn out that exists in this field. Over the last year this project has been extended to Gauteng, Eastern Cape, Kwazulu Natal, Zimbabwe and the Western Cape, it is meeting a real need in community careworkers that have little chance to get the necessary support to help manage the high levels of stress in their work.

Some of the organisations that have benefited from the Wellbeing workshop include Salesians Life Choices in Lansdowne, Trauma Centre in Woodstock, Hearts of Men in Strand and NOAHin Gauteng. Elizabeth Hobbs, Cape Town coordinator  for Salesians Life Choices wrote the following in a report about the Wellbeing: “Thank you to Zakheni for the time,
energy and commitment shown to our VCT team over not only the three days of workshops, but in choosing Life Choices as an organisation to work with.

What an opportunity it was for the group to come together as a team, and as individuals on their own journey.  So often when in a team, we forget about ourselves as individuals, and our own personal struggles. We have seen over time how pushing emotions, feelings, thoughts and struggles inwards impacts
the work of the individual, the group, the team and the service which we offer. The Wellbeing Workshops provided the group with a space to spend time with themselves and refreshed and rejuvenated many of the individuals within the team.”
In August we piloted our new Beyond Words Workshop, aimed at skilling Mental Health Professionals with creative arts techniques to integrate in their work with children. This workshop has been adapted from work we designed for
a project in Lebanon in 2008.

The Zakheni team is looking forward to continuing the working relationships with partner organisations as well as building new relationships in order to offer our skills training and Wellbeing Workshops to more people. We are pleased to offer organizations in the Western Cape, Gauteng and Limpopo an
opportunity to tender for our Wellbeing and FireMaker Workshops for 2011/2012! Contact Phila at http:// This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to receive the tender form and submit by 02 September 2011.

For more info visit http://www.zakheni.org.za/news .html.