When I visited Bangalore last summer, I found many amusing parks in and around Bangalore. Only later did I get to know that these were known as playscapes and were constructed out of tyres by Anthill creations. The journey of Anthill dates back to 2015 in IIT Kharagpur with five architecture students getting together to provide a playground for school children which has, over the years, grown into a social entrepreneurship venture that re-purposes old tyres into colourful playground equipment. Anthill Creations, founded by Nancy Charaya and Pooja Rai and supported by Vishesh Gupta, Souradeep Paul and Nupur Agarwal, is a social startup that uses old tyres from cars, trucks and tractors to create innovative, low-cost playgrounds.
Soon after graduation, the five friends gave up their playground-equipment building project and opted for conventional careers. But owing to the requests that pooled in, Charaya and Rai quit their jobs at Flipkart and Payzilla and have set up Anthill Creations as a full-time venture in 2017 in Bengaluru.
Charaya submitted their idea to IIM-Bangalore for an incubation funding competition in October, 2017. As the idea was accepted, Charaya and Rai decided to focus on it full-time.
“Nudge Foundation supported us at an early stage as were a non-profit venture. This happened in 2018, exactly six months after the incubation programme in IIM. Michelin and Apollo have supported us by donating used tyres. Dell Foundation also has funded our venture,” says Charaya.
Anthill aims at providing playgrounds for children in schools, slums, factories and corporate parks. Launched in 2015, Anthill Creations is a team of just 12, including five architects. This small team has set up 75 playgrounds in cities, villages, tribal areas and refugee communities across 16 states in India, to get more children to play. As per Anthill’s data, these playgrounds have impacted roughly 10,000 children.On an average, 70-80 scrap tyres are used to create a play scape.
“One school principal in Bengaluru refused to let us construct a playground saying that it would distract children from their studies,” recalls Rai.
Swings that were ready to break and damaged see-saws once ruled the playground in KSGMPS aka Immadihalli Government School in Whitefield, established during British rule. But since 2017, children are heading to the school playground earlier and leaving later, just so they can play with swings, caterpillars and twisters. But Anthill has created a playscape out of scrap tyres, a trademark of this Bengaluru-based non-profit.
Anthill is opportunistic when it comes to utilizing whatever scrap is locally available with the best example being the time during Gaja cyclone in Tamil Nadu that had led thousands of coconut trees to fall.
“There we are using fallen trees, because people are burning these as they don’t have the money to transport it. So using locally-available material – whatever resources are available – is the key to what we are doing,” says Pooja.
Once Anthill identifies a school or public space that needs a playground, they send a team to scope out the area, or send a site survey form to the community they are collaborating with. The survey helps Anthill get site measurements and other information like age-group of the children who would use the park, and whether the area is prone to vandalism or earthquake. Accordingly, the playground is designed and its budget is set.
For Anthill, renovating old, metal play areas into vibrant and sustainable playscapes has been easy, regardless of the toil it takes, but they say that their biggest challenge was changing mindsets of people when it comes to letting young kids play. They say that people are failing to see the benefits playtime actually provides for children.
In order to take a look at the unique playscapes built by Anthill creations, visit www.anthillcreations.org and also donate to help Anthill provide more play areas for children!
