Surf Therapy, Cape Town

Statistically, each child in the township experiences an average of eight traumatic events per year. This includes witnessing someone being attacked or shot, sexual violence and substance abuse by guardians. Among children and adolescents growing up in South African townships, toxic stress has become a pandemic, making it difficult for children to control and appropriately express their emotions, focus in school, build social relationships, and seize their future opportunities.

When preventive services are not available to promote well-being and/or treat mental health disorders, it often leads to a vicious cycle from which children and adolescents cannot break out. Gang-related crime, substance abuse, teenage pregnancy, and dropping out of school are commonplace in this environment. Access to and quality of mental health services is low. Treatment gaps of over 90% have been documented in South Africa and mental health programs for youth living in poverty remain inaccessible.

As a longstanding and successful lighthouse project of the help alliance, the iThemba Primary School in Capricorn is already providing access to quality education from preschool to grade seven for approximately 1000 township children. Thus, the school is already paving the way for a hopeful future for each child, but even the best school and the best effective education, however, cannot protect these children from the damage of mental illness, experiences at home or on the streets, and cannot guarantee that they will stay on the right path.

Children of the township who have gone through traumatic experiences.

This project takes iThemba Primary School’s quality education to the next level and provides a complementary and unique opportunity for children with mental behavioral disorders. Through a sports therapy program, these children will be helped to process their experiences and strengthen their personalities.
In concrete terms, this is to be done with the help of surfing therapy with trained therapists. Surfing itself is a challenging sport, but it can also be learned excellently in a group. It requires concentration and leads to a flow state, which in turn provides a respite from negative thoughts and emotions.
Through close cooperation with the iThemba Primary School and the teaching staff, we aim to identify those children who are in particular need of this support and who will benefit most from it.
Due to the fact that our local partner organization is already active in other townships, a fundamental improvement in mental health has already been observed among comparable target groups. Their school performance also improved.

In addition, young motivated township people will be trained as therapy coaches, offering them a new hopeful perspective. Thus, they will serve as influential role models for all children and exemplify a hopeful future.

Complementary, a unique Ocean & Safety Training will engage even more iThemba children in 3rd and 4th grade, teaching them how to safely and respectfully interact with the ocean and bring it to life.

With your help, we would like to develop the sports therapy offer and thus support and promote especially traumatized children.