There are few things more likely to raise the spirits than the sound of a child’s laughter. It is a sound that I have heard often during my years working for Charity Challenge, and today was no exception. Although, to be fair, excited chaos would probably be a more fitting phrase to describe the scene before me. A week ago, where I stood had been little more than an empty collection of concrete shells, overgrown with weeds and littered with the dusty and broken reminders of neglect. However, in the space of five long, hard days, we had helped to transform it into a colourful crèche; one that now echoed to the shrieks and cries of hundreds of children and their bemused parents.
I had travelled out to Petrolina, in north-east Brazil, with a group of volunteers from Reckitt Benckiser. Our mission was to help with the renovation of two crèches for the local community, a project that would go a long way towards creating a welcoming and inspiring environment for the children. Our first day on site though had left a few feeling daunted by the scale of the work ahead. The playgrounds were a tangled mass of weeds, rusting metal and old car tyres, whilst the classrooms themselves were little more than a dingy collection of rooms filled with cobwebs and mosquitoes.
Over the coming days though we cleared the jungle and removed the rubbish, built walls and sandpits and began to transform the crèches into canvases of colourful murals. We overcame heat and dust, giant toads and limping tarantulas. We cleaned floors and windows, tiled bathrooms and inflated enough balloons to launch a small car. We also had fun! Over the course of the week friendships were made and skills were learnt and by the end of it there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
People often tell me I have the best job in the world. Sometimes I disagree, but standing in the middle of that chaos, looking down at a grinning child covered in face paint and clutching a smiley balloon, I have to admit, they may be right.
Copyright Trevor Gibbs 2011
