WATCH: Cape pupils to rewind the clock in honour of Women's Day
Cape Town - Women’s Day, on August 9, marks the anniversary of the great women’s march of 1956, where women marched to the Union Buildings to protest against the carrying of pass books.
To honour this significant date on the South African calendar, women at Plumstead High School, Wittebome High School, Grassy Park High School and the Dominican School for the Deaf showed schoolgirls how to play the games they grew up with in the 1970s and 1980s in Cape Town.
Three games were taught to around 20 girls at Plumstead High School.
Michell van der Schyff showed them how to play kennetjie, which is a game in which a short stick is flipped into the air by a longer stick, batted and, hopefully, caught by
fielders. Van der Schyff said showing the girls the game took her back to when she was a child and she was glad to see they enjoyed the game as much as she had.
Zaheida Thompson introduced the girls to “three sticks”, which is a long-distance jumping game which only requires three long sticks to play.
"Three sticks" or "Drie Stokkies" only requires 3 long sticks/branches to play. Players line up to jump over each stick, placing only one foot down between sticks. Picture: Tracey Adams/African News Agency (ANA)
Thompson said it was fun and exciting to play the game again, and that it brought back lots of memories from her childhood.
She said she was hopeful that the girls would continue to play the game at school and at home.
Halle Collins, 15, said: “Playing three sticks gave us a chance to experience what other people did for fun back in the past and compared it to what we usually do, which is to sit and watch TV or Facebook.”
Pam Bernardo joined in and played STOP, stop with the girls at
Plumstead High School. The game,
which requires one person to call out
“stop, stop!” Invoked roars of laughter from adults and children. During the call, the group ran toward a finish line, and anyone caught moving after the call was disqualified.
Salaamah Blake, 15, said: “It is a fun game to play and it showed me how it was back in the day and I think it is a fun way to celebrate Woman’s Month.”
At Grassy Park High School, Wendy Abrahams showed around 10 girls a game called: I had a little dog, his name was Puff. This game requires players to sit in a circle. The first player runs round the outside of the circle and places the ball behind the second player (of her choice), who gets the ball and chases the first player, trying to hit her with it before she is able to sit down in the second player’s seat. If the second player is able to hit the first player with the ball before she sits down, she (the first player) is out and has to sit in the centre of the circle. While all this is happening, the rhyme is being sung by all the players.
Abrahams, who is a dance teacher, said: “It is good for the children, just from a physical point of view, to play active games and to interact with each other. You could actually see them laughing and enjoying each other while playing. This is sadly lacking nowadays, with everyone just face-down on their cellphones or on their tablets.”
Pam Bernardo shows Plumstead High School girls how to play "S T O P stop". One person calls out "S T O P stop". Video: Tracey Adams/African News Agency (ANA)
She said teaching the children the games was important for the transference of heritage from generation to generation.
At the Dominican School for the Deaf in Wynberg, the children were taught by means of sign language how to play five stones and dodgeball.
For this game, players must throw one stone in the air while trying to grab other stones off of the ground.
One of the teachers, Bonita Fernandez, said: “These games are important for the development of fine motor skills and co-ordination.
“It is also important for them to see that they can have fun without the use of technology.
“Our children are deaf, but they are able to enjoy a great variety of games, and these definitely stimulated them.”
Helen Williams from Wittebome High School played a skipping game with four girls. “I see heritage as being very important because we need to know what happened and how our parents and grandparents played before computers, digital games and TV. I firmly believe we need to know where we have come from in order to know where we are going,” she said.
Head of the occupational therapy department at Red Cross Children’s Hospital, Mereille Pursad, said: “In a nutshell, play is the main occupation of a child and is essential to their normal development. Play is the most important and primary role of a child and requires intrinsic motivation, playfulness and the skills to play.
“It’s where they learn about their environment, construct a sense of order and learn additional skills.
“All children play differently and learn from one another when they play together in active participation.
“The environment in which play happens also impacts the ability to participate and learn from play. Yesteryear games, in contrast, often include all above-mentioned skills all in one natural, multi-sensory environment.”