âI was always a curious child with a fierce interest in the world,â says Futhi Mbongwe, director of Play Africa, âand thatâs helped me to create a space where kids can play and dream.â

Play Africa is a childrenâs interactive museum inside the Old Fort at Constitution Hill in Joziâs Braamfontein, of all places.

It is joyous to encounter a place of playful learning inside what is essentially a heavy place. The Old Fort was a notoriously brutal 19th-century jail before it became home to the modern Constitutional Court.

The Old Fortâs exhibitions feature the original prison cells and isolation or punishment cells, all with cold stone floors and metal bars. From the courtyard, visitors can see the ramparts, guardhouses and barbed wire, and feel the whispers of a torrid past.

Nelson Mandelaâs old hospital cell is just 19m away from Play Africa. He was held there in 1962 as an awaiting-trial prisoner, not because he was sick, but because he was deemed too politically influential to be with other black prisoners, so he was held in the complex, which was otherwise reserved for white male inmates.

Play Africa is specifically designed to transform a site associated with fear and oppression into one that is all about playful learning, bringing light and laughter while delighting and teaching children.

Today, the sunny courtyard has different colourful play zones set up for a group of 75 children who will be visiting shortly.

âItâs a quiet day,â laughs Mbongwe. âSome days there can be 200 kids visiting.â

Most of the children are aged 10 and under, and they will be drawing and playing at the farmersâ market â there are shelves of fruit cleverly made out of fabric. They will also be playing at the Childrenâs Courtroom in a nearby courtyard â a unique stimulation space where kids role-play being in a court and learn about active citizenship, human rights, law and justice systems.

Play Africa has a small full-time team, and it brings in volunteers and partners depending on the programme or project. It reaches about 10,000 children a year through its tours and programmes at the museum, as well as through field trips and outings with its mobile museum.

Play Africa loads its exhibits into trucks that bring imaginative early childhood development programmes directly to townships and rural areas in South Africa.

As a cultural institution, exÂplains Mbongwe, the exhibits and programmes are designed to stimulate imagination, experimentation, innovation and problem-solving in children, as well as their families and educators.

The organisation was founded in 2017 and led for nine years by Gretchen Wilson-Prangley. Mbongwe grew up in Estcourt in KwaZulu-Natal, but has lived in Jozi for many years. He first got involved as a volunteer. When he was approached to be director, he thought: âThis is crazy and beautiful, letâs give it a shot.â

It was always about a bigger vision than his being a director, he says.

On Sunday, 9 August, Play Africa will completely transform a car-free stretch of the CBD into a playground for all ages for Main Street Sundays. Play Africaâs pop-up childrenâs museum will feature its Imagination Playground, which has large foam blocks for collaborative street-building projects. Children can build fantasy worlds, from time machines and castles to motorcycles, rockets and houses.

Play Africa will also be doing chalk art on the pavements and offering maker workshops, face painting and safe pathways alongside scooter and skate lanes.

âWe celebrate every childâs right to play and learn through hands-on, experiential learning,â says Mbongwe. âWe aim to foster a sense of teamwork and mutual respect.â DM

For more information visit www.playafrica.org.za

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.