Lalela provides educational arts for at risk youth to spark creative thinking and awaken the entrepreneurial spirit. Through Lalela’s arts curriculum and critical messaging component, we ignite imagination and teach children how to map and manifest their dreams and goals, launching the possibility of a different future for themselves and their communities.
Everyday after-school, in the hours when children are most vulnerable to abuse of every kind, we work to break the barriers of challenge. We start early (age 6) in developing the art of imagination and we continue through to grade 12 to connect the arts to everything important in a child’s life, from
core academics to critical life skills. Our role in arts education is to help blaze the trail in whole brain thinking with a proven path to innovation and new job creation. Our programs create permanent change with positive outlooks, community role models and the mindset for our students to design a more certain future for themselves and their communities.
The total number of teachers trained were 1,080 from 787 schools in seven provinces. The provinces who completed the programme were Western Cape, Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, Mpumalanga, and Limpopo.
From the most recent M&E (monitoring and evaluation) report, the following statistics are available:
- 91% of learners whose teachers received Heart Maps training indicated that they have more respect for others due to the Heart Maps project.
- 94% of teachers who were interviewed reported seeing positive changes in learners due to Heart Maps, particularly how they relate to their peers.
- 77% of learners indicated that they changed the way they think about themselves, for the better.
- Learners reported positive changes in knowledge and skills.
- The majority of learners indicated that they learned some new art skills from the project.
- Learners indicated that they had gained many valuable intangible/ soft skills, such as how to be less judgmental, how to be kind, how to self-evaluate, better listening skills, how to be more open, the importance of being kind, the importance of perseverance, increased ability to act respectfully, how to share and how to be honest.
- Chantel Ross, subject advisor for the Cape Winelands district of the Western Cape Education Department (WCED), has said this about the trainings: “Valuable skills [are] taught to teachers to apply and implement in their classes that would assist them in understanding the learners better” and; “The educators that attended were as excited about going through the workshop as they could see and experience first-hand the benefits of the well-structured activities to be used effectively in class.”
