IITian Creating Playgrounds For Children With Scrap Materials
“We believe that education is not just in books and classroom, play is an integral part of it.”
“Anthill Creations is an initiative started by five graduates from IIT Kharagpur which aims to mobilize communities to transform the dead zones in public spaces, by creating low-cost and sustainable playscapes from recycled tires & scrap for children. We create an interactive play space which is a harbinger of fun and learning. Creating such areas with recycled material also solves pressing problem of solid waste disposal issue for scrap tyres etc. Most solutions are often expensive, or difficult to implement. Anthill creates very low-cost scapes, by using recycled material and by mobilizing communities & volunteers, hereby reducing construction costs to a large extent.
Our vision is to bring back play in education especially in early childhood. Every part of working with children has been a joyous experience for each one of involved, but one of the best moments was when little kids from the school come forward on their own to help us in painting. They enjoyed even more building their own playground.”
“All our projects so far have been DIY and completed with the help of volunteers who came together to make these projects successful. We may only have a handful of projects in hand currently, but our idea of bringing about a revolution in the way play spaces are created and interacted with, keeps us going. I wanted to study mathematics when I was young. I was always interested in programming and computers but destiny brought me to IIT Kharagpur and I graduated as an architect. I believe education should not limit the scope of things we can do in life, it can only guide us and open the opportunities for us. My education in architecture did help me in Anthill Creations but the motivation to do something for children and education came from my experience with competitions like Hult Prize, etc. We started Anthill Creations in the final year of college. Being an entrepreneur is never an easy ride, irrespective of whether you’re a woman or not. Being young and educated definitely helps.”
“Every step has been a challenge. Right from getting the first few projects to reaching out to more people. We are still struggling to overcome many of these challenges.”
“I don’t know about 10 years but in the next 5 years I want to bring a fun way of learning for every child in the country. Expand to all the cities, by enabling the communities itself to use scrap materials to create innovative play spaces. My work is fun. Meeting kids, playing games with them, understanding their perception of play and bringing out that in our projects have been one major agenda and this entire process is really exciting.”
