Portable Playground: Boston Architects Design Playsets For Refugee Children

The idea behind the playgrounds is that they are constructed on site with non-governmental organizations and can be torn down to flow with the tide of migration. WBZ's Jay Willett reports.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
When you think of humanitarian aid, you might not immediately
think it's child's play.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Just imagine your day like like a twelve hour day
with a five year old that has nothing to do.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
That's Natalie Buvet of the Global Design Initiative for Refugee Children.
She's part of a team of twenty that sends designs
of portable playgrounds to be built in areas of conflict
like Lebanon, Mexico and Greece.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
They're burning themselves, they get electrocuted because there's nothing to do.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
These structures can be built and torn down, moving with
the tide of migration.

Speaker 4 (00:31):
We're interviewing the people there on what they want for
their community.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Patricia Sites is the chair of Architecture at mass Art.
She signed on to do this work back in twenty
sixteen when Natalie pitched it to the nonprofit Boston Society
for Architecture.

Speaker 4 (00:44):
We actually were asked, well, maybe you can do some local.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Programs, Dorchester's Unity Park being one of those revamped playspaces.
Jay Willette WBZ, Boston's news radio