It’s been a busy start to the year for CoolPlay, as we’ve adapted again to the needs of our participants under the restrictions of Covid 19. We were glad to be able to offer some of our programmes in a different form in the first term, where schools invited us in to work with students during Life Orientation lessons. Our Champions were able to use CoolPlay’s principles to this new environment, to work on the students’ social and emotional learning, engaging 2802 participants. We’re delighted that after school activities will be widely resuming from term two.

We started our year with some quality time for our Champions, hosting two CoolPlay Material Workshops. These focused on our newly designed socially distanced games, and how our Champions can deliver these to our participants, making sure that they are safe, but without losing the connections that our Champions have developed.

In addition to the workshops, Social Worker Brandon Marcus Scanlen held two Child Protection and Safeguarding workshops for all our CoolPlay Champions via Zoom. Brandon took the Champions through a step by step guide on keeping the learners that we work with safe. He demonstrated to Champions ‘ Grey Areas’ that may arise and how these areas must be addressed. These workshops were done to support our CoolPlay Champions in their roles as mentors and leaders within their communities and schools.