For the second week in a row the club has gathered to dismantle a playground, transfer it to Rotary Donations in Kind, and load it into an overseas shipping container. The playground at Nettleton Park Glen Iris is now snugly tucked into the container ready for shipment to Kathmandu, where it will be reassembled by Rotarians - to the delight of local children, many of whom will never have seen a playground.
Members of the Rotary Club of Glenferrie combined with members from the Rotary Club of Camberwell and the Rotaract e-Club of Melbourne to complete the project. The Rotary Overseas Recycled Playground project was established and is led by the Rotary Club of Flemington Kensington. To see pictures of the harvesting of the playground, click on 'Read more.."
The Rotary Overseas Recycled Playground project now covers more than thirty municipalities in Australia, and ships recycled playgrounds to Sri Lanka, Timor Leste, the Philippines, Nepal, Cambodia and other developing nations. Playgrounds are regularly replaced in Australia and usually end up in landfill. The RORP program retrieves the equipment, much of which has many years of serviceable life left in it, and makes it available to children who otherwise would never have the opportunity to play on such equipment.
Those of us who have participated in these playground retrievals have noticed a common phenomenon. Wearing our 'high-viz' Rotarian at Work shirts, members of the public regularly stop to ask what is happening with 'their' playground. When told that Rotary is working with the City of Boroondara to recycle the playground for children in developing nations, passers-by express universal delight at the news. Comments such as 'That's wonderful' and 'You guys in Rotary do some magnificent work. Why don't you tell people about what you do' were common. There is no doubt that the combination of recycling with benefiting children in developing nations delights people, and generates very positive feedback.
Thank you to Glenferrie Rotarians David Fallick, Jerzy Ordega, Robert Hogan, Alex Marshall, Ian Salek and Rod Smith and to members of the Rotary Club of Camberwell, President Murray Anderson, Vijay Susarla and Andrew Hunter, and the Rotaract e-Club of Melbourne members Helena Peng, Krystal Ha, Patrick Phung and Vivianne Phung for your hard work, commitment to getting it done, good humour and friendship during the two days it took to get that playground into that container. Especially the roundabout!
