Reconnection and Care

South Africa's mental health ranks one of the lowest in the world, calling for evidence-based interventions. Vulnerability to mental distress is highest among marginalized groups, including children, recently exacerbated by extreme climate events and COVID-19. South Africa's legacy of racial segregation (Apartheid) now manifests at personal and environmental levels, as psychological fragmentation (worsened by intergenerational trauma), and a sense of separation from the natural world. School children, while aware of climate change, lack the agency to address its local impacts, often experiencing climate anxiety. Their mental distress reveals itself through fight, flight and freeze responses of overwhelm, fear, hopelessness, aggression, numbing and substance abuse, separating them from their inner and outer worlds. Children need access to techniques for cultivating presence, emotion regulation and reminders of their interconnectedness with each other and the natural world.