Butterfly Art Project

About the Butterfly Art Project
The Butterfly Art Project is a non-profit organization based in Cape Town, South Africa. We are a group of local and international art therapists, facilitators and involved persons who wish to make a difference, whilst promoting transcultural sharing, caring and understanding. Our mission is to encourage healing through creativity and art.

Art and the creative process yields endless healing possibilities. While teaching children various art skills (what colour, crayons, clay) they start to develop abilities needed to cope with a modern society later in life and presently to deal with their daily challenges.

Underprivileged children, like those living in townships, have limited exposure to specific material required for normal, creative childhood development. By offering them paper, brushes, cloth, spray bottles, puppets, rhythm and movement, we enable them to achieve a sustainable development maturity for their age group.

It is impossible for traumatized children to learn, grow or fulfill their potential without necessary intervention, like the Butterfly Art Project, to assist them in doing so. The simple concept of a butterfly’s metamorphosis, helps lead the children to a deeper understanding of change, growth, healing, transformation and the potential for such, in themselves and their surroundings.   

Butterfly Art Project Programmes
The different programs reach out to hundreds of children and their carers living in the townships of the Cape.

1. Creative Development for Preschoolers
Art for Preschoolers  is a programme where groups of children aged 5 years old, from 6 informal Educare Centers in the community, are invited to BAP for a two-hour weekly art session. We provide these young children with the opportunity to develop in: play, creative thinking, perseverance, focus. They can gain social skills, emotional strength, a wider concentration span, dedication, and develop a relationship with the inner self. Through art and creative activities, we assist the children in developing these capacities in preparation for their formal schooling in the future.

In addition, a group of Grade R children from Capricorn Primary School are invited for an hour per week to explore with clay. This year the department also started a pilot group with 4-year olds from a nearby educare. These children are identified as having major developmental deficiencies. They will be monitored to see if two years of a regular 2-hour art programme at BAP, will help them to catch up and be ready for the formal schooling system.

2. Art for Capricorn Primary School
The Butterfly Art Project works together with Capricorn Primary School  in the community of Vrygrond, offering art classes to 16 classes from grade 3 to 7.

3. Heart for Art
The Heart for Art program  within the Art Outreach department targets beneficiaries outside of school hours aged from 6 years to adulthood. This platform provides our learners with the opportunity to express themselves using several different art mediums and offer a safe space for each of them to grow positively irrespective of the vulnerable living conditions they face every day.

4. Community Art Facilitator Training Courses
The Community Art Facilitator Training Courses provides participants a chance to gain insight into multiple aspects of art, widen their own artistic skills, develop lesson plans for teaching art in marginalized communities, and experience many exercises for creative development.

The training is structured in modules themed for a specific artistic concept and consists of 8 sessions of 3 hours each.

Requirements
• Participation in the 8 workshop sessions, 3 hours each
• Facilitation of a group of children from a vulnerable community to practice new skills, 6 hours per month or 1 group per week
• Monitoring and evaluation of community work
• Portfolio of learnings, lesson plans, and artworks presented at the end of the Module.

5. Community Art Partners Mentoring 
We desire for past and present Community Art Facilitators to engage in peer-learning. This HUB is space where all those connected to the Community Art Facilitators can work on their module portfolios, be coached in facilitation skills, and develop as a dynamic artist even after the course! The studio environment encourages peer learning and cross artist inspiration!

Description of HUB opportunities
Open Studio - a time set aside where Community Art Facilitators can bring their own artwork, portfolio homework or questions for a Community Art Partners staff member. Feel free to come and go during this time-frame. The studio is set and ready for your artistic needs!
Portfolio Work - this is a dedicated time (usually near the deadline of a course conclusion) where you can work on any portfolio pieces. Write lesson plans, experiment with the learnt media, make more examples, or ask your facilitator questions.
Workshop - these are special artistic sessions with a theme. A trained, specialized artist will lead an artistic session. We will offer a variety of topics and mediums in order to expose our HUB participants to a wide range of artistic experiences.

6. Community Art Partners Network
NGOs, Schools, Government Entities, and creative individuals receive support and share skills for BAP’s mission of encouraging creativity and healing through art. BAP offers artistic staff development, coaching, and team-building days to reinforce organisation's strategies and impact. For more information see: Partners and Developing Networks .