Playing to Live South Africa: Building towards Cultural Relevance and Sustainability

 "We are extremely lucky to have such knowledgable connections in South Africa. They bring cultural as well as clinical knowledge to our core programming".

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What an energizing and productive day. I, Alexis, met with Megan and Karen the two representatives from OPSSA to review Playing to Live’s training program in preparation for our first volunteer training starting tomorrow. Karen and Megan have been our beautiful liaisons and the reason that we are connected to TLF. Karen is a South African, play therapist, and child life specialist amongst so many other titles including an upcoming doctorate. Megan is an American who has a long history of living abroad, including a long stay in her beloved Nigeria, is a child life specialist and mover and shaker.

As stated in Playing to Live’s mission, we work alongside cultural liaisons to review our material to insure cultural relevance and understanding in the community. We are extremely lucky to have such knowledgable connections in South Africa. They not only were able to bring cultural knowledge, but their clinical knowledge added to our core programming significantly.

We spent the whole day laboring over each word in our training. Their insight and wisdom was inspiring. They are committed to offering their hand in supporting this second implementation as well as helping us build towards research and evaluation.

The TLF Holiday program was built to give shelter to homeless children while their parents work during school break. Playing to Live! has been invited to provide programming that supports the emotional growth and healing of children who have experienced trauma due to living on the streets. Tomorrow we start day one of our three day training with our volunteers for the Holiday Program.