Project Details
Update No. 2: Awesome! The project has been fully funded, many thanks to everyone who pitched in financially or shared this fundraiser on social media. Due to your support, we have been able to get some much needed tools and supplies from Zomba city and are now in the process of finally building some playground constructions. While we are still waiting for some important metal materials to be delivered (availability of goods and services is not always guaranteed around here!), we are now at least able to work on the tire designs. We will keep you posted, so make sure to check back in if you want to find out what we've been up to!
For now, we will leave you with a picture of our first complete design by the promising name of "Bridge Wobble Tire Cross".
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Update No. 1: Thanks to some amazingly generous donors, we are almost halfway towards our funding goal! Thank you so much for supporting our project for the children at St. Luke's Hospital, or as the people here would put it in the official language called Chichewa: "Zikomo kwambiri!"
As can be seen on the pictures, we have already started purchasing loads of old tires. These will serve as material for a variety of constructions but can also be utilized to relax in the shade of the maintenance building after a hard day of work around the tire dumps of nearby Zomba town.
Unfortunately, the paypal support is not working as of now, but that will hopefully change in the near future. If you feel like donating right now, please drop us a mail and we will find a solution!
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Malosa is a small township in the southern region of Malawi, a densely populated, landlocked country in southeastern Africa. Here at the bottom of Malosa Mountain, patients in need find help for all kinds of medical issues at St. Luke's Hospital, a district hospital originally founded by Anglican missionaries in the 1940s. After expansion, it now offers beds for 145 patients across four wards (female, male, paediatrics and maternity). In addition, the hospital now has an Out Patient Department (OPD), a dental unit, a laboratorium, an HIV clinic, a radiology department, a pharmacy and a clinic for young children under five years old.
St. Luke's Hospital is frequented by a great amount of young people, among them not only patients at the paediatrics ward, the OPD or the under-5-clinic, but also family members of adult patients and visitors, as patients are often cared for by family and friends due to financial reasons.
We are planning to design and build a playground for all the children in and around St. Luke's Hospital to give them an opportunity to find some space for play, exploration and joy in the hospital. Such a space can serve both as a means of recreation and relaxation for the visiting children and as a playful escape for incoming and outgoing patients. Especially in countries marked by limited infrastructure, wide-spread poverty and funding deficiencies in the public sector it is important to provide children the chance to play in a safe, stimulating environment to ensure that early childhood development allows for the acquisition of crucial motoric, social, emotional and cognitive skills. Research has shown repeatedly that the facilitation of these processes increases public welfare and benefits human development immensely in the long run. Therefore, providing opportunities for play serves as a sustainable way to support people in communities in need.
As resources are severely limited in a country such as Malawi and in a challenging environment such as health care in particular, funds for the construction of playspaces are generally scarce. Nevertheless, the hospital management has provided a sum of 300 000 MWK (Malawian Kwatcha, the local currency; equal to about 345 €) for the playground project, which will be utilized to finance the materials necessary to build a seesaw, a set of swings and a slide. However, in order to enable the maintenance department to build a varied, interesting playspace for the children that includes structures for exploration such as a tire obstacle course, a balance bar and a tire tent for climbing and hiding, we require additional funding from private benefactors.
Please help us reach our goal of making St. Luke's Hospital in Malosa a place of joy, learning and adventure for young children by supporting our cause, we will do our best to keep you updated along the way.
Also let us know if you have any questions/suggestions concerning the project and visit https://www.stlukesmalosa.org/ to learn more about St. Luke's Hospital.
Here we provide a few examples of the costs of the materials and services we'll be purchasing with the donations:
1x Used Car tire: 300 MWK (0.35 €)
1x Used Truck tire: 800 MWK (0.93 €)
1x Used Tractor tire: 3 000 MWK (3.48 €)
1x Bolt with nut and washers: 250 MWK (0.29 €)
1x Galvanized pipe: 25 000 MWK (29 €)
1x Grinding disc: 1 500 MWK (1.74 €)
1x Bag of Cement: 7 000 MWK (8.12 €)
The overall funding goal was calculated assuming a combination of constructions as seen below including overheads and utilities.
All donations will directly benefit the St. Luke's Hospital playground project, so each and every donation helps! Remaining overheads at the conclusion of the project will go towards the St. Luke's Hospital maintenance department to aid them with their work maintaining the hospital and the playground.
