The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) is building four Anganwadis playgrounds with scrap and waste, on a public private partnership venture with an NGO. A civic body official further disclosed that the plan is to gradually expand the programme to cover 60 Anganwadi playgrounds.

"Anganwadis in city are being managed by NGOs and Trusts. At present Samvedna is rebuilding playground with waste. They've selected four Anganwadis at first," said Dr Bhavin Solanki, in-charge medical officer of health, AMC.

Prior to this, PPP partner Samvedna Trust was working with Anant University students, as part of their Live Action Project, for the community. They discovered a garbage problem in one of the selected site Mathura Nagari (AUDA) Awaas in Hinglajnagar, where waste was being dumped at the entrance of the Anganwadi unit.

The students discussed the problem and probable solutions with a group of women. They conducted a design workshop with them, where most people suggested a clean and green space for community members to use. During the sessions, they got the idea to convert the space into a place for different activities.

"There could be sports activities or the space can be used for recreational activities," said Janki Vasant, founder of the trust. "The students brought behavioural change through community participation after conducting a participatory design workshop with them. Now, we have a team of architects, who are going to rebuild the playgrounds with recycled waste."

A team of Anant University students consisting Aliza Mehnaz, Marian Asante, Navin Selva, Neha Arora and Renuka Sampagao studied the problem for two months. They also conducted several activities with the Anganwadi kids to teach them about waste and introduce waste segregation.

"We are going to use waste material such as building waste, tyres and plastic waste for the playgrounds. There are architects who are going to design the playgrounds for kids," said a member of the team.