Play360 Service Trip, Tanzania 2013

Friday, May 24, 2013

Friday, May 24, 2013 - Tuesday, June 04, 2013

Arusha, Tanzania

Build A Playground Where There Is None,
and Help Others to Do the Same:
Arusha, Tanzania

This summer, Play360 is offering an exciting 12-day service trip to Arusha, Tanzania. This service trip will be an amazing opportunity to travel to East Africa and experience its people and culture in a meaningful way as our team works with the local community to build a playground at a school. As we engage with the local culture and community, you will play an essential role in furthering Play360’s mission of training organizations to build low-cost playgrounds in order to improve education in the developing world. The unique playgrounds designed by Play360 are colorful, dynamic and interactive and the playgrounds provide opportunities for:

students to learn essential social skills like cooperation and innovation
teachers to expand and enliven classroom curriculum with accompanying lesson ideas, and
parents and community members to utilize their resources and grow their skills.

In addition to working with the community to build a school playground we will be using Play360’s successful and proven training model to teach the local community how to build future playgrounds. Following this training the community will be responsible for building additional playgrounds at nearby schools. Funds raised by trip participants will help pay for all of these playgrounds and will create a ripple effect of positive change for children and communities in Tanzania.

Itinerary Overview

Day 1: This service trip will start in Arusha, a wonderful city in northern Tanzania near the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro. You will arrive at Kilimanjaro international airport on May 24 where we will pick you up and bring you to Arusha to meet up with the team. We will spend our first few days together getting to know one another and traveling to more rural villages to meet with village elders and share meals with tribe members.

Day 3 : We will head to the the playground construction site, tour the school, and meet the teachers and students. We will also have the chance to visit the other schools where future playgrounds will be built.

Day 4 - Day 7: We will start building the playground!! We will work closely with the local community on the construction site. You and your teammates will be trained on how to use the tools and build the playground. You do not need any special construction experience or skills. Everyone will be able to contribute to the playground build in their own way. We will all roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty to create a fun, educational playspace for the local children.

A typical build day on this adventure will begin with breakfast. We’ll then travel by van to the village where we will spend most of the day at the build site working side by side with local community members and other trip participants. Depending on your comfort level, your work will involve cutting tires, painting logs, or swinging hammers. On breaks, you will have time to play with the local children. You will experience everyday life in a Tanzanian village -- watching meal preparation, learning conversational Swahili with the children, and, of course, playing soccer. Around midday we will take a lunch break and have a chance to share stories with new friends as we try local foods.

In the afternoons, after a full day building, we may have the opportunity to visit different places around Mount Kilimanjaro, such as a local waterfall, trade shops (including a blacksmith) and the local market. In the evenings, we will return to camp to share dinner together in the shadow of Mt. Kilimanjaro and we will meet together as a group to discuss the day’s experiences.

Day 8: After the opening ceremony for our new playground, we will say goodbye to our new friends in the community and travel back to Arusha to prepare for our safari.

Day 9: We will have the opportunity to go on a day hike in Marangu Village.

Day 10: We will head to Tarangire National Park for a full-day of safari game drives where you will get to see Tanzania’s spectacular wildlife and spend the night in a tented safari camp.

Day 11: We will visit the Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, before returning to Arusha to celebrate all of our hard work, new friends, and to prepare ourselves for the return home.

Day 12: We will arrange transportation for you to the Kilimanjaro Airport for your return flight home. We can also recommend a tour company that can arrange opportunities for you to extend your stay in Tanzania to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, visit Serengeti National Park, or explore the coast of Zanzibar.

Working Together

This adventure is a unique experience to step away from the comfort of your everyday life at home to broaden your perspective, to learn about a different culture and to be of service in a meaningful way. You will contribute your skills and talents to the service project to help create positive, tangible change in an impoverished community. As an active participant in this team experience, you will learn and reflect with the group on this experience’s challenges and rewards. Your service in Tanzania will be a transformative experience that will stay with you for the rest of your life.

This journey begins at home, before you travel to Tanzania, with your fundraising efforts, and continues even after you return from Tanzania as you share the story of your experience with your community at home. Each participant on a Play360 service trip is responsible for paying the program fee, $1,500, to cover your individual program costs. This includes your accommodations, food, in country transportation, and park fees. This does not include your international airfare, which you are responsible for separately.

Additionally, each participant commits to fundraising at least $3,000 to cover the costs of building the playground and to support the continued work of Play360 and subsequent playground builds. We will support you in your fundraising efforts by setting up a fundraising website for you and by providing you with lots of fundraising ideas and all of the information you will need about Play360 so that you can share our mission with your community and give them the opportunity to contribute to this exciting project.

Contact Information

Phone: 6179215445 Email Us

Payment Instructions

Contributions to your fundraising campaign should be made with a credit card on your fundraising page, which we will set up for you, or by mailing a check(s) to:
Play360
1202 East Wylie St.,
Bloomington IN 47401.

Checks should be made out to “Play360”. Please include your name on all check memos.