Construction for Play - Playround for Mbollet-ba

Aim

We are fundraising to provide facilities for learn and play for nursery children in Mbollet - ba village in The Gambia.

Together with OUR GLOBAL SCHOOL (Charity no. 1168345) we want to provide facilities for learning and playing in Mbollet-ba, a remote village in The Gambia. 

Through play young children learn valuable skills for a rapidly changing world - skills such as problem solving, empathy through role-playing and collaboration. We want to make a safe space for nursery children to play, so that they can extend their skills.

The local community will be involved in the research, design and fabrication of the playground, giving the community greater ownership of the project, space and the final outcome. Workers involved in different stages of design and build will be paid a fair daily wage which will allow to bring additional revenue into the village.  

We worked with children and adults in a series of creative workshops over 3 weeks in April 2017. Children were able to explore the existing spaces as well as being introduced to new forms of play. At the end of the 3^rd week we created a proposal based solely on children’s ideas with careful consideration of the parents and teachers wishes. 

An important aspect of the project is the use of locally sourced and  sustainable materials – like palm leaves, bamboo, earth blocks and soil.  We don’t want to build a ‘western’ type of playground, but propose something sustainable, cheaper and easy to maintain, which protects the local environment.

• We plan to reuse existing structures and  recycle unwanted materials – like car tyres. Lots of those materials  are abandoned and unused in the fields around the village. This will allow us not only to reduce the costs of the construction but will also bring positive change by cleaning local area and introducing recycling  ideas in the village.

Our proposal includes:

•  A discreet space for younger children in the nursery school - by creating smaller, bespoke items for younger children we will be offering children a space to get comfortable with the school environment as soon as they start. The space will include a role-play house and a large swing for children to share,
• Mobile play and storage which can be used by teachers and moved around the playground. This is based on the trials where children were seen to use a woven palm tunnel, baskets and fabric with great imagination and the teachers saw many opportunities for how these materials can be used to link learning inside and outside.

• 2 speaking tubes which will encourage children to communicate in new and different ways.
• Spaces for meeting and eating - break times are really important times for children to get some food, eat it and talk to their friends. We would like to build 3 ‘bantabas’ (which are traditional meeting spaces in West Africa) for different ages of children.
• A role-play boat which reflects the location of the village which is near to swamps and marshes, which open to the sea. Children were very excited when we showed them photos of boats to play in and started offering very creative ideas for play
• Hills, tunnels and ramps which will offer children to move in different ways and extend their imaginations. They will be able to make dens and play spaces within this area as well with items from the Mobile Play and Storage.
• Swings will encourage children to play collaboratively.
• Large blackboards and quiet comfy spaces for reading and writing - we observed children outside of the classrooms wanting to read and write, so want to create spaces which will support and encourage this. Spaces may be contoured by moving sand or creating small seating areas

This project closed unsuccessfully on 12th December 2017