Two pioneers are using art therapy to help Soweto children heal the wounds of poverty and violence. Hazel Friedman reports
THEY beckon like neons in the smog and debris: two zozo huts decorated with bright murals of frolicking children and flowers. These are the Dube and Othandweni headquarters of Matep (Mokhele Art Therapy and Education Project), a pilot art therapy facility in Soweto.
The programme was established in 1989 by Mamatlakeng Makhoane — an artist and community teacher — whose accomplishments in the face of dismal conditions could fill an encyclopaedia — and artist Colin Richards. A fine arts lecturer at Wits, Richards is also a qualified art therapist — one of only six in South Africa — and a founder member of the Art Therapists’ Association of South Africa (ATASA).
Both pioneers in their fields, they have tapped into the power of creative expression in helping children to heal the wounds of poverty, violence and neglect.
It is no easy task trying to make a difference in communities that live with an ongoing legacy of conflict. It is even tougher reaching children who have learnt about fear before trust, and who are more familiar with pain than with laughter.
“Looking in from the outside, without knowledge, it’s easy to believe that you can perform miracles,” muses Richards. “One tends often to romanticise poverty. But once inside, you realise you can only do so much, and no more.”
Yet with meagre resources and against a background of indifference by the previous educational authorities, Richards and Makhoane are performing a small miracle. They have made inroads into community drug and alcohol rehabilitation centres. And in the zozo huts constructed at Dube Chapel and Othandweni, a home for abandoned children in Mofolo South, the walls of their makeshift classrooms seem almost to buckle under the weight of creative trophies produced from discarded scraps.
“These are creatures protecting the environment,” says Makhoane, pointing to a cluster of colourful masks on the walls, the result of a project on conservation. “This is the king and queen and here are the vampires who attack anyone who has harmed nature.”
“The images these children produce and the process they undergo in our groups provide unique insights into their internal world, and their creative activities offer powerful support and enrichment for the child in need,” says Richards.
Richards and Makhoane do not practice art therapy in the strict sense of the word. There is no attempt to exorcise the demons that lie behind every childlike scribble and scrawl. They simply offer an outlet for children whose creativity, for one reason or another, has been inhibited.
“The project is largely process-oriented,” explains Richards. “It offers children a way of channelling their frustrations and dealing with the outside world through an intermediary. It’s essential to get into the process of helping them either to shore up their defences or seek wider fantasies, in order to deal with disappointments in life.”
Unlike Richards, Makhoane is not a qualified art therapist, but her vast experience as a community arts teacher has given her extraordinary insight into the healing powers of creativity. In many ways, Matep is an offshoot of Sedibeng sa Limpho, a community arts project initiated by Makhoane, which today is run by Funda sculptor Lucky Jiyani.
In addition to offering art classes to children from disadvantaged communities, Sedibeng sa Limpho also arranges student tours to art galleries and encourages community participation in student performances and exhibitions.
Explains Makhoane: “This project is committed to exposing our children to our cultural heritage, building their self confidence and enabling them to experience the satisfaction of expressing themselves through creativity.”
But there are no quick fixes and the process is not failure-proof. Richards recounts the case of a severely disabled youth who was abandoned at birth. Doctors pronounced him “uneducable and beyond communication”. Twelve years later he has defied all the prognoses. He is one of Matep’s success stories. But there have also been disappointments, like the 14-year-old whose extraordinary artistic ability was undermined by his uncontrollable hostility and aggression.
“I was unable to help him channel his anger and eventually I had to give up,” recalls Makhoane.
She adds: “Like the students themselves, each community has different needs. For example in Dube most of the kids have had a fairly secure family life. Zola, however, is another story. There they have been deprived of a childhood altogether.”
She recounts how Jiyani tried to instill a sense of creative purpose in a community riven by poverty and conflict. His efforts culminated in an exhibition in Zola hall that was put together by children and parents alike.
“That exhibition was a miracle,” says Makhoane, “but since the elections there has been a growing sense of community apathy. It’s as though some people think the struggle is over when in fact it has only begun. People have a sense that Soweto is in transit, but our present is here, as much as our history.”
Yet, ironically, despite its proven benefits, art therapy remains a victim of the appalling inadequacies in the provision of mental health facilities to disadvantaged communities. Although it has support from a number of health and civic organisations, it has yet to achieve official recognition in South Africa. There are no courses for art therapists and the smattering of professionals have been trained at overseas institutions.
“We are determined not to join the graveyard filled with community projects that had all the will to succeed but none of the resources,” says Richards. “We want desperately to set up more formalised structures but we need to work with people who have the lived experience, so they can instill trust in the children and enable them to take control of their lives.”
Matep is confronting the myth that childhood is an era of uncomplicated innocence. And while it can never completely erase the pain of poverty and abuse, it is helping Soweto’s children to overcome it.