One of the best known festive season projects is Santa Shoebox, which collects and distributes personalised gifts of essential items and treats for underprivileged children throughout South Africa and Namibia.
This year, with the scourge of gender based violence firmly in the spotlight, the project wants to include as many as possible copies of an activity book for children about bullying and violence against women and children. With two weeks left to go, they are calling for sponsorship of the books to include in gift boxes this year.
The book, by independent social publishers, Hero in my Hood, is titled The Freestyle Stars. The Santa Shoebox Project collaborated on the book, which was developed with the guidance of people such as Vanessa Farr, an international gender activist, specialising in Africa and the Middle East; Lorna Lake a clinical psychologist, specialising in family matters; Professor Rachel Jewkes, executive scientist, South African Medical Research Council, Dr Rochshana Kemp, social work manager, Western Cape Department of Health, and JellyBeanz, an NGO dealing with traumatised children
After 10 years of working on commissioned educational projects, from primary health care and child safety to fire awareness and environmental issues, illustrator Kate Boyes and former educator turned layout artist, Mandy Lomberg, started Hero in My Hood, which develops affordable story/activity books in response to research that showed children needed to be encouraged to be “courageous and kind”.
“We chose freestyle soccer as the theme as it is an activity that is traditionally seen as for the boys but one in which girls are just as active,” said Lomberg. “If you look carefully you will see many clues throughout the book that challenge gender stereotypes. In freestyle, the individual is encouraged to express themselves, and in our story the children of a neighbourhood come together as themselves and shine as a team, ‘ The Freestyle Stars’.”
The activities and story are connected, so that the child must complete the activity in order for the story to progress; in this way, the books are engaging and the child becomes instrumental in the story, say Boyes and Lomberg.
Their first publication, Let’s go to the Animal Clinic and Shelter with Lucky’s Activity Book, was developed with the help of Mdzananda Animal Clinic in Khayelitsha. It covers all the important aspects of pet care. The book is being widely, and successfully, used in education programmes by animal organisations throughout South Africa. Lucky’s activity book is currently available in four languages and is aimed at children between the ages of six and nine years old so the book has a range of activities for children of differing abilities, covering a variety of learning areas: language, counting, picture identification, concept recognition, concept matching, shape, pattern, size and sequence.
“With this concept in mind we were approached to develop a book on gender based violence. As we researched the topic it became clear that we needed to address peer violence, identification of emotions, and generational violence,” says Boyes.
They were advised by people such as Vanessa Farr, an international gender activist, specialising in Africa and the Middle East; Lorna Lake a clinical psychologist, specialising in family matters; Professor Rachel Jewkes, executive scientist, South African Medical Research Council, Dr Rochshana Kemp, social work manager, Western Cape Department of Health, and JellyBeanz, an NGO dealing with traumatised children
The aim of this book is to help children understand their own emotional feelings in order to help them develop empathy. Children are encouraged to ‘tell’ and to ‘talk’, thus breaking the silence that allows negative behaviour to continue. The story guides the children to find something that they enjoy and which they can do well, thus building self-esteem.
“We chose freestyle soccer as the theme as it is an activity that is traditionally seen as for the boys but one in which girls are just as active,” said Lomberg. “If you look carefully you will see many clues throughout the book that challenge gender stereotypes. In freestyle, the individual is encouraged to express themselves, and in our story the children of a neighbourhood come together as themselves and shine as a team, ‘ The Freestyle Stars’.”
