In Cape Town we continue to collaborate with the Rotary Club of Sea Point to bring joy to children living in difficult situations.

The Teddy Therapy Initiative is one such example – a quote of their activities

**Project Activities** During 2024, we made donations of Teddy Bears to the “Heartshine” project,organised at Amy Biehl Foundation (this initiative focuses on helping children who have experienced trauma). During our sessions, we utilized the teddies as interactive tools to facilitate emotional expression among the children.
Neuroscience supports this approach, indicating that children often feel more comfortable sharing their feelings with a teddy bear than with an adult facilitator. Each teddy was carefully tagged to ensure that every child received a personal friend, fostering a sense of identity and belonging. We limited our distribution to 20-30 teddies per session at the Amy Biehl Foundation, allowing us to maintain a personalized experience for each child during their Saturday programs.

**Impact and Engagement** The impact of this project has been profound. The joy on the children’s
faces as they took their new teddy friends home was truly rewarding. We are committed to providing
these teddies to groups of 20-30 children participating in special classes for a total of 10 weeks.