Building Playgrounds - 10/12/11

Since the kindergartens closed for the summer our team has taken on several new projects. Still associated with the Mehozetu Network we have a team working on educational resources such as a teachers pack with all the ideas and more that we have bought to the kindergartens. A Special Olympics group have accepted the help from several volunteers and we are all about to hold a summer school for 13-15 year olds. The project I am working on is building playgrounds for the kindergartens and this is what I am going to talk about in this post as the title suggests.

Currently the network is having safe buildings built in all the kindergartens and a couple are changing plots. There are also a few already with functioning playgrounds and so we have limited ourselves to 8 playgrounds. Up until the week just gone we have been collecting materials and deciding what will be built. A supermarket, OK foods, donated 9 old wooden pallets which we intended to make 'shop fronts' out of for the kids to role-play with. TrenTyres and Tyre Rack (tyre places with unimaginative but practical names) have donated old tyres to us. However, most successfully a hardware store called Cola Cola Hardware agreed to generously sponsor our materials. A couple of unemployed, local, skilled labourers offered their help in building (drilling, sawing, mixing cement etc.).

We came up with a design and showed Natalie and Nelson, the couple who own Cola Cola, and they phoned around all over town getting hold of large wooden poles, paint, rods, bolts, nails, rope and more.

Part of the climbing frame in progress

Along the way we’ve had several hick ups, ones that made it look like we were going to have to give up. First apparently nowhere in town had enough wooden poles which was soon solved when we found out an order of 400 were on their way from South Africa this week. Then we overlooked the fact we’d need concrete to make the climbing frames stand. Again this was solved almost straight away when Anneke, a volunteer working with Mehozetu, contacted a builder friend, Glen, who worked out a deal for us. Most recently was when the first climbing frame was put together then we realised all the threaded rods were in a condition that the bolts could not be attached – just like every other issue it was solved within that day when my host dad showed me some tools to fix the issue.

The frame so far

Clara demonstrating how to use the frame

This past week Glen, the said unemployed locals and us (the GX playground committee) have put together 4 almost complete frames and installed them in kindergartens. It looks like the picture above. We are still to place another tyre on top of the one in the image, bury some as stepping stones as well as some smaller poles, lay down large tyres and install rope swings. Once complete the more creative types on our team will paint it.

After putting the frames together a GX volunteer, Megan, explained to Glen how great the other helpers were and how they were looking for work. Glen then offered them a job starting Monday helping with the buildings I previously mentioned - a great by-product from our work and a wonderful thank you for their incredible contribution.