Project Details
We began working with the Stratton ABC Foundation in October 2010. The aim of our organization is to provide, education, creative development, and a voice to groups with little or no access to these things. John, from the Stratton Foundation is eager to broaden the opportunities and creative expression of the children at his home. We began our relationship through visual arts and dance workshops. During one of our workshops John mentioned that they had planned to get a playground but couldn't afford it and as a small organization, were often turned down for funds. Having heard of GoPlay Projects work in Mae Sot, we decided to look into the idea of building a playground.
We began our project with a "fantasy playground" brainstorming session with the kids. The kids drew pictures of some of the things they wanted in their playground. We also sent out an appeal to our friends, family and volunteers past and present to raise funds to build our playground. After raising nearly 40,000 baht we took on the challenge of building a creative playspace for the Stratton children.
As an arts organization, our expertise lies more in design and aesthetics than engineering and construction. Our biggest challenge was to develop a playground design that would be fun for the children but also safe and easy to build. We decided to focus on building the ground up rather than building high off the ground. The focus of our playground is man-made hill with a tunnel through it and a slide coming down from the top. The kids were adamant that they wanted a slide so we couldn't leave that out! The tunnel leads to a castle shaped cubby house. We did want to build some off the ground structures so we solicited some local help to build monkey bars and a climbing frame.
We've recently added some color and fun to the playground area with a fantasy jungle themed mural. Though we've finished building the playground, our hill has suffered at the claws of some eager puppies, who made a game of tearing up our grass. We are now working on touching up the hill and getting it ready for the rainy season.
