Young physiotherapist builds a playground in developing country

It is a blessing if you can apply your expertise in charity to spread love and bring happiness to others. Jack Chung, Physiotherapist II at Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital has brought like‑minded friends together to help underprivileged children build a playground full of fun and physiotherapy concepts in the Philippines to give them a place to enjoy themselves every day!

Jack has been active in volunteering since university, after which he and 11 other buddies set up a volunteering group called ‘Mission Until Dawn’ in 2015. The members of the group have different backgrounds, from engineering, law to information technology and social welfare.

Jack says, “At first, we planned to build a children’s village to provide healthcare and education to the underprivileged kids. But after our visits to Nepal, Sri Lanka and Cambodia, we found that these countries are not as short of resources as we thought, so we finally decided to build a playground for 400 children in a city called San Pablo in the Philippines.”

Given his experience in handling children cases in Specialist Outpatient Clinics before, Jack knows how to design playground facilities to assist both physical and mental development of children. “This playground is made up of four major facilities – a skygazer, a rocking car, an adventurous bridge and a rainbow castle with slides and fire pillars, all of which have been integrated with physiotherapy concepts. For example, the design of the climbing frame aims to enhance muscle strength and coordination to train the weak core muscles of children. I was inspired by my former children patients who often complained about feeling tired, having fatigue standing and those who loved to lie on a table when writing.”

Jack shared his idea with his engineer friend who then made a sketch of the playground and sent to the local partner in the Philippines for follow‑up work and the purchase of construction materials. After that, the team flew to San Pablo to kick off this meaningful project.

During Christmas in 2016, Jack and his team travelled to San Pablo to commence the construction of the playground. They did everything on their own, from putting mud, piling to welding. “We planned to spend 10 days on building the playground. Unfortunately, we had to stop for 1.5 days because of the typhoon. The most unforgettable experience was that we didn’t pile up with a machine but had to hold a hollow steel pillar ourselves and did it manually.” Local volunteers continued to follow up on the remaining tasks after they returned to Hong Kong. They flew to San Pablo again in last summer to finish the remaining work and painting.

Jack lamented the lack of innovation, challenges and excitement in the designs of playgrounds in Hong Kong, “I think the best playgrounds should be those created with the free play concept, which means each facility offers more than one possibility of playing. It would be ideal if a playground design blends with the neighbouring environment. I hope there will be playgrounds of this kind in Hong Kong soon!”