In 2007, Tom Gill (EAP’s co-founder and chair-Trustee) spent several months living and working in a mission in a rural town in Tanzania. Whilst there, he noticed that the children at the local school had time to play, but didn’t have much, if anything, to play with. On returning to the UK in September 2007, Tom decided to research the possibility of going back to Tanzania to build a playground for the school. After 6 months he had a complete set of plans, permission from the Bishop of the mission and had found a small team of volunteers. They raised the money needed and headed out to Tanzania, and, after 8 weeks of hard-labouring our first small team had turned an area of disused scrubland into a fully-functioning playground complete with swings, seesaws, bongie-bongies, and a climbing frame, slide, tyre bridge, fireman’s pole and netball court.
During this time, Carla Powell (co-founder and Trustee) was working in Uganda building schools. On returning home from Africa, Carla and Tom had a joint vision to set up a charity that extended the playground idea to other children and organisations in East Africa, and offered the opportunity for others to volunteer and take part. Whilst completing their degrees at the University of Leeds, they found two further trustees and established East African Playgrounds, and by April 2009, EAP became a fully registered UK charity.
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