Art Therapy Centre
Art in Johannesburg

Lefika generates some income from private and public sector training which is used to sustain the organisation and deliver our outreach community programmes.
Lefika is Africa’s first Art Therapy Centre, born in 1993 out of a critical need to respond to the effects of trauma from political violence in the final years of Apartheid in South Africa.

Through this specialised skills development, we are able to facilitate community outreach projects as practical placement sites for our students. Recognising the universal need and nature of psychosocial health, we have grown from our initial centre based in Gauteng and now reach interprovincial communities across South Africa and abroad. To provide safe spaces in which creativity and containment nourish emotional development and strengthen relationships. When art materials are engaged with in a therapeutic environment, the process may evoke different feeling states reflecting the unconscious forces that shape a person’s experience. The role of the Community Art Counsellor is to create a safe space in which the voice of the image can be heard, understood and contained.