This year Life of Colour’s charity donation was made to LALELA
This year Life of Colour chose to make our end of year charity donation to LALELA.org. Thank you to all of our incredible customers for making this possible.
This charity is very close to my heart as it is in my home country of South Africa. Like many other countries in the world, South Africa has really suffered at the hands of Covid-19 in 2020. Now more than ever our friends there need any help they can get, whether it is basic food and necessities or help with art, education and other activities to enrich their lives.
Lalela encompasses everything that we believe at Life of Colour. Please read more about them in this article, watch their video and take a look at their inspiring pictures, so you can see how you have contributed to them this year.
A fraction of each purchase made in our store this year has contributed to our generous donation, and they are so grateful to all of us!
They will also be receiving a huge hamper of Life of Colour goodies, and we will be hearing a lot more from them in the New Year.
- Jodi
About Lalela
Lalela provides educational arts for at-risk youth to spark creative thinking and awaken the entrepreneurial spirit. LALELA is a Zulu word that means ‘to listen’.
This arts education program has touched the lives of thousands of youths since 2010, and offers over 140 classes across Southern Africa per week. The importance of the arts in Lalela’s mission comes from the fact: the Arts are the first subject to be removed from a school due to a lack of resources.
Lalela’s story starts with a gathering of 20 students in the South African township of Imizamo Yethu during the 2010 Soccer World Cup, hosted in South Africa. Lalela has expanded since then, to communities across Cape Town as well as in Johannesburg and KwaZulu-Natal, and beyond our borders to Zimbabwe and Uganda. Over 50.000 students have experienced the Lalela curriculum to date.
Lalela’s work begins at age 6, up to grade 12, providing everyday after-school spaces that connect arts, academics and life skills. The organisation aims to “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”.
Their methodology connects the arts to everything important in a child’s life, with the philosophy that “we do not teach learners what to think – rather, we provide experiential learning that encourages them how to think”.
Ideas, Art and Music (I AM) form the signature components of every Lalela curriculum.
Some short term goals are to encourage children to be more creative and positive towards themselves, others and their future. Growing in time into better interactions with others, healthier choices, greater tenacity and better cognitive and school performance. The long term goals are to give tools to the youth to further their education and career paths, to become active citizens and positive role models.