Intlantsi Creative Development trains unemployed youth and adults as Community Arts Repair Practitioners in communities with little access to arts education — building therapeutic, child-led spaces in Ngqushwa’s schools where children and facilitators grow together. Intlantsi means ‘spark’ in Xhosa.
Our Mission
‘No right or wrong’
At Intlantsi we live by the motto of ‘no right or wrong’.
We welcome any child to freely express themselves though our arts-based psychosocial support.
In South Africa, school often means memorising answers and chasing marks. At Intlantsi Creative Development, we do things differently. We believe creativity isn’t just for the “talented”– it’s how we learn, talk, heal and stay connected.
Empowerment through art
Every child has a fundamental right to the arts, yet historically, South Africa’s Bantu Education Act stripped this essential expression from Black education, a devastating gap that remains open today.
We want to turn what we learn in our community into a recognised, decolonised training programme, so that creative healing can be shared with communities all over South Africa.
Creativity starts right where you are
In the rural villages of Ngqushwa, Eastern Cape, generations of children grow up without access to the creative tools they need to learn, heal, and connect.
Intlantsi exists to ignite the inherent creative ‘spark’ within every person, bridging this divide by treating creativity not as a rare talent, but as a basic human necessity for growth.
With paint, drums, stories and drama, we turn classrooms in Peddie into warm, therapeutic spaces where children and facilitators grow side by side.
# Intlantsi means ‘spark’ in the Xhosa language.
What We Do
Arts-Based Psychosocial Support — Child-centred arts activities for grades R–9, delivered in schools during school hours by trainee facilitators.
Practitioner Training — A four-level training pathway building toward South Africa’s first accredited Community Arts Repair Practitioner certificate.
Train-the-Trainer — Training modules written and delivered by the facilitators who came up through the programme themselves.
Community Engagement & Showcases — Workshops for parents and teachers, and performance platforms where children celebrate their talents.
Why It Matters
South Africa’s Apartheid-era Bantu Education Act removed the arts from Black education, and that gap has never been properly repaired. None of the 25 people who have entered Intlantsi’s training since 2012 had ever held a paintbrush before joining us — despite all being schooled after apartheid ended. We exist to close that gap, on children’s own doorsteps.
The Spark, By the Numbers
800–1,000 children reached every week
9 schools
8 villages across Ngqushwa
12 schools reached since 2012
R500 average cost per child, per year
From the Community
“Even the most disruptive children are cooperative and obedient around them.” — Teacher
“I can speak in class now, answer questions, and I can read. They help me to move forward.” — Learner
“I never thought I could stand in front of a classroom and support children.” — Nomphelo Dumke, HR Manager-in-Training
A Word From History
In 1989, at the peak of apartheid, anti-apartheid activist Ellen Khuzwayo wrote the words shown here. When she passed in 2006, they still rang true. Today, 20 years later, they still do — and it’s why Intlantsi exists.
Sadly, when Kuzwayo passed on 17 years later, these words still rang true. Tragically, they still do today… 37 years later.
