57 Volunteers, 40 Project Days: Project Complete

57 Volunteers, 40 Project Days,

40 Hours of Building, Digging, Cement Mixing, Gardening & Painting

Mandela Park Creche - 

Classroom Extension & Garden Development Project

2014/15 summer season with VA32 saw an incredible community development project at Mandela Park Crèche - a rural Wild Coast School near Chintsa, South Africa. Over the months of November to January this small crèche benefited from great work completed by enthusiastic volunteers from VA32 project partner International Student Volunteers.

The task was to extend the existing classroom (a shipping container), roof the classroom and create a child-friendly, educational, outdoor space for the learners to enjoy. 

Here's how it went:

The first group of volunteers arrived!

And started laying bricks...

...plastering...

...fitting windows...

and laying pathways.

Trusses were added...

one by one...

Until the roof was ready to be laid!

Yay!

The roof was completed and the pathway covered, with railings
to guide the children - job well done!

Now it was time to make the building look
great...

...with gorgeous murals by our
creative volunteer team

CLOSE UP - local group leader Tobs made it into the mural!
Cool character ;)

And in the meantime, an educational garden was in the making...

From marking out and preparing plots to grow fruit and veg...

and planting poles...

...building rockerys...

...and planting indigenous cuttings and trees 

The Garden of Dreams started taking shape...

with huge thanks to local supporters Marcus from Buccaneers Backpackers
and Simon Bosazza from Tea in the Trees for their donations
of cuttings and seedlings

There's a maze and a veggie patch,

A shady sandpit, seating area & tons of educational little spots for the
little learners to enjoy 

A massive well done and thank you from VA32 and Mandela Park for all of the time, energy, hard work, creativity and love that has been put into this project. The Crèche and school grounds have been transformed in such a short space of time.

Wishing all of our volunteers safe onward travels, happy
greetings back at home and we can't wait to see you
again soon in Chintsa :)

To find out more about volunteering with VA32 in South Africa, visit our website.