VISIONS
East African Playgrounds believes that alongside education, children need access to sports and play activities to reach their full potential. We envisage a world where all children have access to schools that are equipped for learning, sports training and play.
MISSION STATEMENT
East African Playgrounds aims to change the lives of children across East Africa by developing schools environments, sports and play facilities. By working alongside local communities, tradesmen and sports coaches; we refurbish schools, provide sports training and equipment to both students and teachers as well as create play spaces.
East African Playgrounds is set up on the following basic beliefs:
- Community involvement – If the community are not involved then we are just blindly giving out gifts, therefore it is vital for communities to be directly involved at every stage of the the project to create valuable ownership and sustainability
- Local Investment – We invest most our time, finances and effort into the East African communities and people we work with. The majority of the materials are sourced locally and our focus is on employing East Africans not UK members of staff.
- Minimal Overhead – People like to see where their money goes and by keeping our overheads low we can show our donors exactly where the money is spent. Over 75% of donations went on projects in the last financial year.
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
Playgrounds- Using volunteers from the UK and the local community we build high quality, safe and fun playgrounds. We use local materials and local tradesmen to build a place for the whole community to enjoy and develop.
Sports training- We provide all the sports equipment for the schools and team up with local trained coach’s to provide football, netball, volleyball and chess coaching to the children, teachers and parents.
Reading- We provide relevant books for schools to use and stock their libraries with. We also partner with local Non Governmental Organisation’s (NGO) which train teachers on library use.
Arts- Working alongside local artists we provide after school art clubs where the children get to express themselves and use all sorts of different art material that are donated from the UK.
Refurbishment- Working alongside the school’s Parent, Teacher Association (PTA), our builders and local volunteers perform maintenance and refurbishments which have been requested and supported by the local community.
Welding apprenticeship- We provide welding apprenticeships to young people who have struggled through the school system and have a real passion and skill for welding. This is a two year apprentice where they gain their welding qualifications and have the potential for a full-time position alongside EAP’s current welders.
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
We believe, along with a lot of other charities worldwide, that the key to successful, long lasting and sustainable projects is community involvement. To give each project the best chance for creating a positive long lasting impact we work alongside the local community from the start and continue the relationship throughout. Each community is expected to contribute funds to each refurbishment project and donate their time and labour to each playground build and sports, arts and reading program. We have found that by working to this model our programs have maximum impact.
FUTURE PLANS
In 2009 we built our first playground, in 2011 we finished our 9th playground and started its preparations for its sports coaching, art and reading programs, school refurbishment programs and the EAP welding apprenticeship.
In 2012 we are planning to increase our work, with the main focus being on Uganda. So far there are plans for 10 playgrounds, 8 sports coaching, reading and arts programs along with 7 school refurbishment programs. We are aiming to have the Ugandan EAP team self reliant within the next 2 years so that we can begin to set up a Kenyan and Tanzanian EAP Team.
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