‘Every child wants to find joy’: the scheme designing playground equipment for disaster zones

As one in six children worldwide is affected by war, a UK charity is providing children in refugee communities from Ukraine to Ethiopia with flatpack timber climbing frames

Like many new parents, photographer Alexander Meininger found his world changed after he had kids. “You end up spending a lot of time observing them in playgrounds – whether you want to or not,” he says.

Meininger, who grew up in Germany but now lives in London, likes making things. So when he saw how much his young sons enjoyed the jungle gym and play forts at the local park, he made an indoor treehouse for them. That was as far as it went – until the Ukraine war. Watching the destruction of infrastructure on television, Meininger wondered what he could do to help Ukrainian children, and alighted on the idea of playgrounds. This was his first step towards creating Playrise, a charity he launched this week in London that makes flatpack play equipment and furniture for displaced families living in disaster relief zones.