CDP Trust

The CDP Trust is an NGO that works with refugees, orphaned children and abused women. They have created a programme called Arts For Advocacy where they use art to assist people to tell their stories, as well as create promotional material to create awareness for their plight.

A collection of their work is currently on display at Constitution Hill during the 16 Days Of Activism campaign.

They also teach people skills like fabric dyeing and screenprinting, that can be used to earn a living. They have not only succeeded in promoting healing and building awareness, they have also succeeded in building sustainability for thes people.

Women come to the centre and tell their stories. They feel heard, very often for the first time in their lives. They learn and share, and when they leave they are armed with new skills that they can use to make a living for themselves, so that they can grow out of their past experiences and begin new lives for themselves.

They work with paint, clay, fabric dye, mosaics, collages and other media to share their message with the world.

Pop in at Constitution Hill this week to see this astonishing collection of work.

Have a great day in full colour!

Kind regards

Melanie

0835689150

Raku Firing

If I had the time for a hobby, it would certainly be ceramic. As with colouring fabric, colouring clay can be unpredictable. I love the anticipation of not knowing until the end how my crafted item will actually look, and the surprise when I see that it is not what I expected it would be. This is the magical side of life!

Raku pots are baked in open firepits as opposed to the controlled environment of an electric kiln. Because of the wild process, the results are varied and unpredictable.

The CDP Trust is an NGO that I work with quite closely. At the centre they teach the most vulnerable people in our communities a variety of handcrafts in an attempt to give them skills that they can use, not only to express themselves and heal, but also to create products that they can sell for money.

They teach visual arts using every medium, from paint to fabric dye to clay. At their centre they pass on the skills of screenprinting, tie dye, lino printing, ceramic, beadwork and any other craft with income generation potential.

These crafts are also a powerful catalyst for healing. Many of the people who come to their centre have suffered extreme traumas on their journey through life. Through these creative processes, they make peace with their past and build a road to their future.

If you would like to support the efforts of the CDP Trust, why not sign up for a course and learn more about the magical Raku process? At the same time, your money will go back into the centre to upskill somebody else who can really benefit from new skills and a fresh chance at survival. Have some fun and support a worthy cause.

Have a great day in full colour!

Kind regards

Melanie

+27835689150

CDP Trust and Kids Haven

The CDP Trust is an NGO in Bertrams, Johannesburg, that is working tirelessly to help those in the community that are too vulnerable to help themselves. They operate on private funding from Europe and they assist refugees and abused women and children to survive and have a chance at rebuilding their lives.

They use arts and crafts as a catalyst for disclosure and healing. Colour is therapeutic. It has the power to rehabilitate and heal. CDP Trust uses it as a balm on the wounds of the people who come to them for help.

Recently, they brought in groups of children from Kids Haven in Benoni for a holiday programme. I went to the concert afterwards to celebrate their artworks and achievements.

It was my first visit to Kids Haven, and the experience will stay with me forever.

Kids Haven is a shelter in Benoni that takes in children off the street in Johannesburg. As I stood in the hall looking at more than 500 busy children, I realised that not one of them had anywhere else to go, or anybody to turn to. All of them have some aweful tale of trauma to tell. No child will simply leave its parents. Some have lost both parents to illness, others have run to Johannesburg to escape unmentionable horrors at home.

All of them crave love.

Afterwards I was chatting to a friend of mine about the experience. She seemed frustrated that the Government is not doing more for children like these. The truth is that there are just not enough resources for the growing problem. Each one of us is sitting hoping in some vague way that somebody, somewhere, is taking care of the problem, because that is what moral society does.

In reality, there are scores and scores of children like this around us everywhere, that the resources do not reach, for whatever reason.

I went in and presented a 20 minute colour magic show for them. It cost me a little bit of my time and a piece of cloth. It meant the world to them.

I am 37 years old and I am still blessed to have both of my loving parents. The only thing that seperates me from any of the children in that room is the fact that I happened to be born in the right place at the right time. Every day I am more thankful for that lucky accident.

Do you have kids who are moaning that they do not yet have the latest Playstation? Step out into your community and go and meet the children in the shelters and homes around you. Contribute. Donate. Get involved. Change the world you live in.

Have a great day in full colour!

Kind regards

Melanie

Crafts Bring Hope To Vulnerable Communities!

The CDP Trust is an NGO in Bertrams, Johannesburg. Charlotte and her tireless crew are helping abused women and refugees to change their lives and find hope of a better future.

The trainers at CDP use visual arts to stimulate victims to talk about their situations and face their realities. The creative experience promotes healing as they speak about what has happened to them.

The images that they create are used further as the basis for the Arts For Advocacy programme. The evocative images are far more powerful than any that any design agency could come up with to convey their message. From these artworks, CDP generates slogans for T-shirts and artwork for posters and brochures that are used by organisations such as POWA to plead their case to Government.

Do you know that many female refugees who flee their homes for fear of their lives, only reach South Africa to be raped by the very people to whom they have turned for help?

Sitting in meetings talking about the plight of these people does little to alleviate their suffering in the real world. Many of the women who come to the centre are financially dependent on their abusive spouses and are not able to extricate themselves from the financial trap they are in.

This is where handcrafts bring hope. A woman can go out, gather a few basic raw materials, make product with her handwork and sell it for money. She can go through the whole cycle in a matter of days. Imagine how empowering a few hundred Rand can be for somebody in such a situation?

I trained at CDP Trust in 2008. In 2009 they were short on budget and I was not called in again to teach. I felt it would be a pity to allow the thing I had begun to fizzle out just because somebody told me there is a recession. I invited one of their trainers to a refresher course, on me, to keep the momentum going.

Nirupa invited me to their year end function to see what she did with that knowledge and how she passed it on to forty more women. I started sobbing when I walked into the wall-to-wall display of dyed garments and fabric. I cannot even begin to describe how I felt when I met a lady called Grace, who in a few weeks had gone from being unemployed, to being self-employed! She arrived at the event with a sack full of dyed T-shirts and fabrics that she had made. She is selling them in the community and she is feeling a new sense of empowerment. She says her children are particularly proud of her.

I am grateful that my work has led me to such an amazing life experience. Thank you Nirupa and Charlotte for doing such an amazing job.

Have a great day in full colour!

Kind regards

Melanie