Who we are

Clowns Without Borders South Africa (CWBSA) promotes innovative, creative, and evidence-informed interventions that support the psychosocial wellbeing and protection of children and families affected by crisis and adversity.

The vision became tangible through CWBSA’s arts-based and playful programmes using drama, physical theatre, clowning and music since 2007. Over 500 000 children were reached on the African continent and beyond through the arts.

Since 2012, CWBSA has enabled scale-up of the Parenting for Lifelong Health programme for children aged 2-9 (PLH for Children) and aged 10-18 (PLH for Teens) by capacity building, content development and supporting implementation by partner organisations across Africa and East Asia.

The aim of the programme is to reduce violence against children and provide psychosocial support to vulnerable families in low- and middle-income countries.

With the vision of “children being children again”, CWBSA aims to realise the following objectives:

To support the development, adaptation, dissemination, and scale-up of evidence-based psychosocial interventions.
To develop creative and innovative programmes and approaches that strengthen the capacity of partners to improve child and family psychosocial wellbeing.
To support skills capacity development of artists, facilitators, trainers, and technical personnel.
To manage communication for development interventions to assist in community mobilisation, advocacy, social norms changing, and momentary emotional relief.

The core values of the organisation are:

Trust /
Respect

Sense of
play

Emotional
well-being

Innovation

Creativity

Collaborative
approach

“I learned that there is a huge difference between a facilitator, a coach, and a trainer. Every time we did activities, they were connected to the previous knowledge and experiences. I liked the activity where we looked at the overall programme; it gave me a better understanding of the KAP programme. I also understand that I need to demonstrate capacity in terms of principles in order to be an effective trainer in the field.”
Suzie–Caris Foundation Haiti