Playtime at Somila Daycare Centre, South Africa

It's high season here in Chintsa! The 16th May marked the arrival of our first group of "impact" volunteers. By "impact" we mean - short term with an immediate and measurable outcome. Our impact groups stay for two weeks and are challenged with either completing an entire small project within that time frame (for example building a jungle gym) or being a part of a longer term project (for example building a classroom which could take a whole season).

This season there will be nine groups of volunteers taking part in various Community Development projects in the wider Chintsa area.

The first and second groups were based at Somila Daycare Centre. This project works in partnership with Caring for Orphans in Rural Areas (CORA), a South African organisation which works together with rural communities in improving daycare facilities by creating or uplifting centres, establishing feeding schemes, playgrounds and vegetable gardens, assisting in training and mentoring the management of centres amongst other support, in the wider Wild Coast area.


The task set for our team was to build a jungle gym, fence the playground area, build a child friendly tap and install toilets for the school.

The first job taken on was the jungle gym. The team prepared the ground and dug holes to plant the poles.

Then the power tools came out to get the base of the jungle gym put together!

The team moved really quickly with the project.. and here's the finished article :)

The team then began digging to prepare for the installation of the long drop toilets...

The team starts to put the timber frame together...

The toilet block starts to take shape!

With painted zinc attached to the frame...

Door frames inserted...

And the block almost complete!

Group leader Milton demonstrating the
completed toilets ;)

A huge thank you to the first two groups of volunteers who were really hard working and put a lot of blood sweat and tears into the projects at Somila - well done guys :)

Read more about the "Tippy Tap" which was installed at Somila in our next blog and look out for the next groups work on our blog!

Milton & April

Find out more about our volunteer projects on the VA32 website: www.volunteerafrica.co.za