Week 3...Not the greatest

So this week was a toughie. It was filled with letdowns and having the strikes happening at the schools meant that we couldn't do a lot of what was planned. But we just did what OTs do best, we made a plan on the spot.

The teachers have been on a go slow since the April holidays because they are wanting a wage increase and added to this the parents are wanting to strike because they have not received the term 1 reports because of the go slow. The teachers have been warned that they need to attend school for the whole day in order to get paid but the ones in Mariannridge have been at the police station during the day and the schools have been closed. These strikes have been going on for the whole week and it has caused them to close the schools for the childrens' safety even though their is no violence happening. This all has caused the children who are bused in and live in the community to come and sit around, waiting to see when the school will be open in order to get an education. This is a huge concern to my group and I because there is a big drug and alcohol problem in the community and they are needing something to spend all this extra time on. We have intervened with impromptu educational sessions with the smaller children with the use of play dough, stories, games outside etc. We need to look into a programme that we could run with the high school children that are sitting around because they are loosing out on important lessons. An idea that was put onto the Mariannridge residents forum was getting the parents to take over some of the lessons in order to ensure there is some continuation of their studies. This is something that will be spoken about this next week when we will identify a solution to this problem that has affected the community. For articles on the strikes please refer to the following articles:
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Politics/Dept-Poor-hardest-hit-by-teacher-strike-20130424
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Politics/Govt-shocked-disappointed-in-Sadtu-20130425
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Politics/Strike-and-be-disciplined-teachers-warned-20130423
And here is a video done on the Mariannridge Community about the strikes:

This wellness group I am running seems that it is also going to be a challenge. The grannies that attend have a tough life at home taking care of their families and their households so when they come and attend the wellness group they are just wanting to gossip and forget about their own lives, this is not constructive. I tried to run a reminiscent group reflecting on their lives and sharing their photos but nearly everyone forgot their photos or everyone spoke during the group. They had said in the book I am using for the group that it should be done in a big group but I think they will benefit more from smaller groups in order to focus their attention on what is happening in the activity in front of them. We will be testing out scrap booking with them in the next session.

One of the highlights of the week was going to Hippotherapy on the Tuesday.The American Hippotherapy Association, Inc., defines hippotherapy as a physical, occupational or speech therapy treatment strategy that utilizes equine movement. The word hippotherapy derives from the Greek word hippos, meaning horse. The term hippotherapy refers to the use of the movement of the horse as a treatment strategy by physical therapists, occupational therapists and speech/language pathologists to address impairments, functional limitations and disabilities in patients with neuromotor and sensory dysfunction. This treatment strategy is used as part of an integrated treatment program to achieve functional goals. This has been an interest of mine so I was extremely excited to attend. We worked with SARDA (South African Riding for the Disabled Association) www.sarda.co.za at their stables in Shongweni. We were inspired by the stories they told us of hippotherapy helping children communicate, calming them and improve their muscle tone. Here is a video explaining what Hippotherapy is and the benefits of it done by an organisation in America, a similar one was filmed while we were there which we star in so keep a look out for the SARDA promotional video.

The one thing that I love about Occupational Therapy is that you can have a really bad week but you will always find the positives and use them in order to improve the negatives, we look at a person's abilities rather than focusing on their disabilities. I look forward to this next week and know that it can only be better than the last week because we are looking forward and change will happen.