High on life and on stilts: ‘Uncle Lassie’ uses play to teach kids

Wonder, delight, intrigue. That’s how children – and most adults – react when they see the fabulous giant yellow fellow with the sunglasses and bowler hat known as Uncle Lassie. My first sighting was at Main Street Sundays in April, an open-street event in the inner city of Jozi, when he came waltzing down the road on 3m-high stilts, like some kind of fantastic sunshine-flavoured superhero that had stepped straight out of a comic book.

Uncle Lassie – real name Vuyo Ndalela – is a longtime professional stilt walker and children’s entertainer. He’s turned balloon modelling into a complex storytelling art form, twisting balloons into animals, superheroes, jewellery and even outfits. He does parties, corporate events and festivals.

But what started as weekend festival performances evolved into something far deeper as Ndalela was drawn to the world of early learning. Now, through his playful and imaginative work at inner-city crèches and schools, he’s redefining the world of early childhood development. Through visual arts and physical games, he helps children to develop motor coordination, boost self-esteem, improve communication and strengthen critical problem-solving skills.

We met up at Growing Seeds Preschool in Berea, where Ndalela teaches a playgroup once a week. Many of these kids, says Ndalela, live in the surrounding high-rise flats and don’t have the space nor opportunity to physically play.

“They weren’t being properly stimulated,” he says. “Children need to learn through play.” And over the course of a few hours, he puts the kids through their paces with music, sports cones, hula hoops, dancing and aerobics – with cheerful results.

Ndalela’s journey began in the streets of Soweto, where a neighbour introduced him to art in the 1990s. “That changed my world,” he says.

Standing tall

It led him to get involved in street theatre in 2003 through the Creative Inner City Initiative, where he learned stilt walking. On weekends, he was performing and then he started getting involved in working at crèches and schools during the week.

He shot videos for crèche events, performed as a clown, stood in when teachers didn’t pitch. Principals noticed his gift with children – “Give me five minutes and 100 children and I will show them a rainbow of fun!” – and his love for teaching kids became completely “unstoppable”.

When Ndalela moved to Bertrams in the east of the city, he got involved in the Curriculum Development Projects Trust, an NGO that uses the creative arts for social development, education and community transformation. He immersed himself in training and became an early childhood development practitioner.

Uncle Lassie Mobile was born in 2019. Basically, it’s a specially adapted bicycle that tows a large trailer packed with arts materials and educational toys that can be unpacked at a crèche, on a pavement or in an open playground and turned into an instant classroom. Uncle Lassie Mobile provided fun and play for 15 crèches in the area called Makers Valley, which includes the suburbs of Judith’s Paarl, Bez Valley, Bertrams, Lorentzville, Troyeville and New Doornfontein.

Then the pandemic happened and, like so many, Uncle Lassie Mobile was hard hit. “It was the hardest chapter in my life,” he says. Ndalela started again, building back up, knocking on doors, facing rejection. Through his tenacity and imagination, he was able to get back on his feet – and stilts – again, and converted his passion back into business.

His motivation is twofold – making crèche fun and filling the play gap. “I creatively help kids to learn through play.” It’s also had an unexpected impact on teachers, who have learned to connect with their inner child and reduce their own stress. DM

Uncle Lassie will be back at Main Street Sundays on 9 August. Check out Jozimyjozi.com for more information.

Bridget Hilton-Barber is a freelance writer who writes for Jozi My Jozi.

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available countrywide for R35.