My name is Tara and I am an Environmental Science Graduate. I first started this page in the hope of raising enough money to build a playground for the Ratu Filise Memorial School which is located on the coral coast of Fiji in the village of Namatakula. That goal was realised in February 2013 with the completion of the Ratu Filise playground. This page and the idea of building playgrounds comes fr
om a place of thinking big and dreaming even bigger. A volunteer trip to Fiji with Volunteer Eco Students Abroad saw me as part of a wonderful group of people who repainted and built sustainable structures for the Ratu Filise Memorial School. It was whilst I was there that I had the lovely opportunity of speaking to the kindergarten teacher who was extremely thankful for the work we were doing. Her white walled classroom had been transformed with colour and she was so happy as she could now teach her children about colour as in the past she had relied on material from broken umbrellas to create a colour wheel. It was during this conversation that she told me how she had prayed the Australians would come and build the children a playground so the children would have a chance to play like the rich children do. This however was not meant to be as we were there to build rainwater tank stands, a compost pit and an incinerator. Upon returning home this conversation stuck in my head and by no means are we rich but she was right, we have playgrounds everywhere and I have never given a thought about how lucky our children are to have them, so as I watched my sons and all their school friends playing on the play equipment before school I began to think "you know what maybe I can do something about this" because after all every kid deserves the joy you get from swinging on a swing or sliding down a slide. So there began the quest to see if I really could make this happen and after contacting Community Support Network, Fiji I discovered that this dream really can become a reality so with a mission in mind I set about raising enough money to build the school a playground. That mission became a realitywith the support of some wonderful people who donated money and Qantas who helped out with the shipping of the equipment. The goal now is to build more playgrounds and to look at the possibility of having travelers to Fiji be able to come and help with the building of them alongside the Fijian people. I hope you enjoy this page and the journey. Hopefully we can create some smiles and laughter along the way
