History and background of Ukuthula Sandplay NPO 279-750
Ukuthula Sandplay has been providing Silent Group Sandplay (SGSP) in resource-poor communities in rural KwaZulu-Natal for 4 years, since 2022. The project was initiated by Lindi Redfern after the completion of Sandplay research when the participants in the research study requested to continue Sandplay because of the healing benefits experienced from the Sandplay provided during the research. The only way that Sandplay could be continued was through the establishment of an NPO to oversee and raise funds for the provision of SGSP in communities where therapeutic intervention is not readily available. From there, resources and funding were sourced and continue to be sought so that the provision of SGSP by trained community-based facilitators can take place. When Ukuthula first started providing Sandplay, it was done by trained volunteers and the goodwill and support of Lindi’s family and friends, who provided funds and resources to set up the first Sandplay room at Khazimula. Jess Redfern arranged a fundraiser that secured initial funding for Ukuthula to gain traction; thereafter, James and Derek Redfern cycled the Cape Epic to raise awareness and funds for Ukuthula. Organisations like the Community Chest-Pmb, the DG Murray Trust, the National Lotteries Commission (NLC), the Grail Community (UK-based), Khazimula (themselves beneficiaries of SGSP), as well as individual donors, including Jill Brown’s regular donation and the substantial in-kind support of office, meeting and training venues provided by Redfern Incorporated, have enabled the ongoing community-based therapeutic work provided by Ukuthula’s SGSP.
Image at Top: Nonthando outside the Khazimula Sandplay room
The current scope and work of Ukuthula Sandplay
In 2026, SGSP continued at each of the three group Sandplay facilities in Lidgetton, Mpophomeni, and Cedara. Khazimula, the original community-based SGSP project, has been running since 2022; Ethembeni since 2024; and Never Never Lands since 2025. Each Sandplay facility can accommodate 5-6 Sandplayers at a time, and groups attend sessions from Monday to Friday. At full capacity, 85 Sandplayers can be accommodated simultaneously for a 6-week series of SGSP.
To date, hundreds of children and adults have been introduced to and accommodated for a series of 6 Sandplay sessions, and about 30% of SGSP participants have attended and continue to attend multiple series of SGSP sessions. As is the practice, debriefing of facilitators takes place for each group series attended and provided, followed by feedback with the respective community partner organisations. In addition, and as part of ongoing training and development, facilitators are encouraged to attend training sessions continuously. The most recent additional training was on the “viewing of sand images”, which resulted in a deeper understanding of the therapeutic benefits of intentional SGSP. Sand images are the by-product or outcome of a Sandplay session, and they provide insight into inner worlds so that individual beneficiaries of Sandplay can be better understood and supported by their school, clinic and/or home of safety – wherever the Sandplay project is situated.
Image on RHS: The Khazimula Sandplay room accommodates 6 Sandplayers at a time.
Development and growth of community facilitators for increased attunement and therapeutic capacity
SGSP facilitators who work with their groups of Sandplayers at each of the three Sandplay facilities attend personal Sandplay sessions between running a series of Sandplay sessions for their group. Personal Sandplay not only supports facilitators personally but also increases their ability and capacity to offer SGSP in increasingly meaningful and therapeutic ways. We are amazed and encouraged by our facilitators who themselves experience profound adversity in life, yet they are resilient and continue to grow and extend compassion to others. This is a testimony to the fact that as human beings we may not have much control over the circumstances of our lives, but that there is a lot we can do about our individual perspective and responses to these circumstances. In addition to this, professional trauma-informed volunteer mentors who are themselves therapists provide support to senior facilitators and to our programme coordinator. Such mentorship further assists with gaining insights from connecting with different voices that are informed from a therapeutic and life perspective. Mentors connect online with Ukuthula facilitators, and our current mentors include Janelle Hunt (KZN), Shaun Nortje (Gauteng), Ansa Bestbier (Free State) and Lynn Damons (Western Province). Our mentors are associated with the Association of Sandplay Therapists (AST) and are regarded as partners and collaborators, donors and supporters of Ukuthula Sandplay. We are grateful to them for sharing their wisdom, and for the encouragement and support they bring to Ukuthula.
Community and partnerships: ‘Collective collaboration’
Ongoing education and awareness campaigns about the benefits of SGSP over the past 4 years have increased awareness of group Sandplay therapy as an intervention. In this respect, Flamboyant School in White River, Mpumalanga, has reached out to request support in setting up and starting an SGSP facility. They are raising the funds for this project, and Ukuthula will support and inform the provision. This is an exciting addition to Ukuthula Sandplay, as Flamboyant is a remedial school, and it will be meaningful to integrate personal inner processing support in this setting. Jung observed that knowing intellectually or with the mind is not the same as knowing at a deeper, felt and sensing level. In fact, knowing just with our thinking function is actually quite limited. Sandplay encourages a deeper knowing and facilitates connection to our deeper selves and, in this way, touches us and reminds us of our shared humanity. In today’s chaotic world of increased speed, data and technological advancement, including artificial intelligence, we are well placed to be reminded of our humanity and the collective wisdom and strength amongst us individually and collectively.
Resource constraints and hope for continuity
In the four years of operation, Ukuthula Sandplay has not been able to employ anyone full-time. The team that supports the project is comprised of 3 founding directors (Ilse Brown, Angela Ferguson and Lindi Redfern), 3 senior facilitators (Nonthando Nzimande, Nomfundo Buthelezi, Nonkululeko Hlombe) and 1 project coordinator (Bongekile Ngcobo), who, like the SGSP facilitators, are all reimbursed for their time and services provided each month. Revenue and funding remain constrained, and we are aware that for continued operation we need to secure additional sources of income. Despite our NLC application being submitted on the 23rd of April 2025 and having reached the adjudication stage, we have not yet had an outcome. This is stressful. We have contacted the NLC several times to ask about the process and have been told that the application is in the queue and that they aren’t able to indicate anything else. As has been discussed before, limited resources inhibit provision and cause distress for everyone involved in the project. The tension is palpable, and we toggle between despair and hope. Despair that the healing work of Ukuthula might have to be paused or come to an end. Hope for a positive response to the numerous requests and applications made for funding and support during the past year. (Thus far, this year we have only received negative outcomes to formal funding requests.) Every application has been indicated as worthwhile and compliant, but is received together with hundreds and thousands of applications, whereby only a few can be successful due to limited funds! This highlights the fact that we operate in a scarcity complex which is not only pertinent to South Africa but also internationally. Nevertheless, we will continue moving and working on resourcing and fundraising, and are energised and encouraged by the remarkable stories of individual healing and post-traumatic growth witnessed and reported as a result of community-based Sandplay.
Apart from The Community Chest, Redfern Inc, Khazimula and Jill Brown, most of the donors mentioned have provided once-off funding to date.
Every individual and organisation that has supported Ukuthula has contributed to the transformation of individual children and adults. Healing activated in one person adds to the individual’s family, work and community groups to which they belong and, therefore, through the ripple and radiating effect, contributes to collective healing and the processing of intergenerational trauma. Countless varied stories have been shared by our community partners, stories that involve suicidal behaviour being resolved, mute, isolated behaviour shifting to interacting and connecting with others, calmness and containedness being achieved, and increased excitement and enthusiasm for life being attributed to SGSP participation. One cannot measure the activation of unique healing – it is a wonderful privilege to witness and to hear remarkable stories about healing effects from our partner organisations. Ukuthula does not work in isolation, and the healing activation occurs within the respective community partnership settings at Khazimula, Ethembeni and Never Never Lands and soon-to-be Flamboyant. Every donation of a matchbox car or of cash has supported and contributed to the collective healing stories witnessed both in the sand images created and as told by our community beneficiary partners.
The future of Ukuthula Sandplay
Rests in the hands of us all: the potential funders and donors, the community partner beneficiaries and the trained facilitators and Ukuthula team members. We need funding to continue operating, and we trust that, with our collective efforts to resource and sustain ongoing silent group sandplay, we will be successful.
Personally, I vacillate between 1. resigning myself to the fact that we may not be able to continue this work, and 2. realising the implications of stopping and that the lives of hundreds of children and adults will be denied opportunities for engaged and supported Sandplay if Ukuthula doesn’t receive ongoing funding support. All the work of SGSP will come to a standstill, and in contemplating that it is what keeps me going … the 20-plus trained and dedicated community facilitators - what will happen to them? The children and adults who experienced themselves for the first time in silence and through Sandplay – denied continuity and opportunity to get to know themselves in this unique way.
Of course life continues without Sandplay, but with no Sandplay-like activities available, there is less and less opportunity to experience and connect with the deeper parts of ourselves. The parts that, if recognised and encouraged, can assist in life thriving and sustainability. It is when I am faced with the reality of what will not be able to happen if we do not secure ongoing funding that I am left feeling bereft. Gutted by the implications of severe constraints and unmet inner needs remaining neglected and deprived.
- Lindi Redfern