Students create interactive walls to promote positivity in South Africa

There’s always room for a good dose of positivity to lift our spirits and unite us all as South Africans. Two teams of students from Vega, a brand of The Independent Institute of Education (IIE), set out to do just that at this year’s Walk the Talk, with interactive installations designed to encourage positivity and unity among everyone attending the Walk.

The students were approached by Lead SA to come up with two exciting and engaging activations that respresented the brand’s ethos of encouraging people to take small steps to change the world in a positive way.

The ‘Purpose Wall’, conceptualised by Nadine Venter and Pieter Burger, 3^rd year creative brand communication students, encouraged participants to write a positive phrase about South Africa on leaf-shaped notes, and to put these up on a series of indigenous South African trees.

“We chose each tree based on its symbolic meaning,” says Venter. “Marula is a symbol of love and friendship, the Yellowwood is South Africa’s national tree and a symbol of pride, and the Baobab is a symbol of strength and perserverance.”

Participants could then walk over to the other side of the wall to experience the ‘Love SA’ activation, conceptualised by creative brand communication student, Zanri Marais and interior design student –  Jan Esterhuizen. For this activation, participants used colourful string to connect a series of English, Zulu and Afrikaans words displayed on the wall, to represent the causes partcipants walked for.

“These are the three most commonly spoken languages in Gauteng, and we thought it was important to represent the languages of as many people taking part in Walk the Talk as possible,” says Esterhuizen.

The installation offered participants a fun, interactive and meaningful experience, adding to the positive atmosphere of the day, and showing everyone that a little positivity goes a long way. For more insight on positivity through creativity, visit www.vegaschool.com.