Too many children in Diepsloot born into poverty and disability never have the chance to build a brighter future.

·         At home, they face addictions, abuse and family breakdown.

·         In the community, they face crime and violence.
In their schools fail to take into account their special needs.
Their teachers are not equipped to help them deal with their trauma.

These children are strong. They are resilient. Given the chance, they not only heal, but they break the downward spiral and prevent them from being caught up in the cycle of poverty.

We’ve seen vulnerable families like this achieve freedom from the trap of poverty and violence, gain the skill (so that) make positive choices through opportunities that were never available before.

Shumbashaba makes those opportunities possible. It helps these children and adults to recognize opportunities, to see that they can make different choices that have different outcomes.

To feel empowered to choose an outcome so they realize their strengths and unique skills to build their future.

Shumbashaba is inviting you to be a part of making an even bigger impact.

With your help, we provide outdoor programs to vulnerable children and adults from Diepsloot that engage them in physical and psychological therapy.

We mostly use horses and the outdoors as a way of helping children and adults work through their trauma and gain self-confidence. The boys and girls you support in our program learn through the experience itself, following proven and tested methods of therapy that engage them in different ways.

Your help provides ​therapeutic riding ​that helps children with physical and intellectual disabilities improve their balance, decrease their pain and increase their happiness.

Thanks to generous people like you, our ​experiential​ / ​outdoor therapy ​program helps children interact with horses’ outdoors, learning how to take care of the animals as well as themselves, while working through psychological therapy that helps them heal from debilitating trauma.

And with your support, our ​youth development ​program helps young people who encounter violence and abuse find a safe space where they can learn life skills that will help them build a more hopeful future.

Why Horses in counselling, learning, and leadership programs? 

Our therapy programmes that incorporate horses are rooted in international best practice approaches that include horses in mental health services. Our approach includes a distinctive experiential framework designed to allow clients the latitude to discover, learn, and grow from the horse-human relationship.   The approach is ground-focused and solution-oriented, creating a safe environment for both horses and participants to be themselves; no horsemanship experience is required and no riding takes place, which makes it safer and keeps the focus on addressing the goals of the session.

All sessions are facilitated by both a licensed, credentialed mental health professional and an equine specialist. Incorporating horses provides a uniquely different approach to leadership and team development.   As prey animals, horses respond to nonverbal messages, even unconscious ones, and their responses often remind clients of their goals, personal challenges, or relationships with themselves and others.   Herd dynamics become powerful metaphors for leadership styles and roles, teamwork, effective communication, appropriate boundary setting; in addition to illustrating group function. The horses and context become symbols and metaphors of the participants’ stories thereby providing a self-distancing opportunity to explore thoughts, emotions and behaviours which may not be in consciousness; yet influence the leadership decisions made and the outcomes experienced.

Through the process of interacting with horses and the natural environment, participants come to know themselves better; understand their process and practice the changes they want to make in a safe, supportive setting.