When Susan Abulhawa’s daughter, Natalie – now 18 – was small, her favourite outing was to the playground in their Philadelphia neighbourhood. It was nothing unusual – swings, a slide, a climbing frame – but for Susan and Natalie it was a fixture, a chance to run off energy, explore and meet others.

“She wanted to go every day. Playgrounds were pretty big in our lives,” says Susan. So when, in 2001, the pair visited Jerusalem – from where Susan’s parents had fled the 1967 Arab-Israeli war – their absence was glaringly obvious.

“We were walking around the city and there were so many empty lots, full of rubble. I was thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if there was a playground here or here?’ The children’s experiences were so far removed from Natalie’s. The gap was – still is – huge.”

She has described her return to Palestine as a reawakening, saying that “when I heard the adhan for the first time and realised how much I’d missed it, I broke down in tears”.

She decided to do something. The result is Playgrounds for Palestine (PfP), a non-profit organisation that has set up 22 children’s parks in the region, including in refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria, with five more in the pipeline.

Susan, 45, is a human rights activist and writer passionate about the fate of Palestine. Her first novel, Mornings in Jenin, a bestseller in 2010, was a raw and emotional account of four generations of one Palestinian family.

Her new book is The Blue Between Sky and Water – an often autobiographical story of a family forced to flee their Palestinian home in 1947.

Many of Susan’s cousins still live in Jerusalem. Other family members are scattered around the Middle East. Working to improve the situation of Palestinians living in the difficult conditions of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, has become her full-time occupation.

This, she explains, is not something she could have predicted on her return from that 2001 trip. “Everyone can do something. I never really questioned whether it was my responsibility,” she says, “but a hospital or a school were beyond my reach. A playground seemed manageable. It isn’t changing the world, but it is bringing joy to those who use it.”

She was working as a scientific researcher and not making much money, so she borrowed $500, taught herself to build a website, got some friends on board and persuaded a manufacturer to donate playground equipment.

The PfP remains, purposefully, small and grass roots. Its focus draws in those who would otherwise be wary of entangling themselves too deeply in the politics of the Middle East, she believes. “At our annual dinner, we have women in hijab, Jewish supporters, black, white. It is wonderfully diverse. Helping children is a safe way to express solidarity with Palestinians.”

One of the playgrounds that Susan Abulhawa provided the equipment for and which was built locally.

Her wider political view is never hidden though. “Those children are living like this because of brutal military occupation. Our work is just a plaster. Part of our mission is to put eyes on what is happening to Palestinian children. Unfortunately, though, criticising Israel has been conflated with antisemitism.”

It is important to Susan that her daughter is involved in the charity’s work, to develop her awareness of privilege and sense of social responsibility as well as to understand her own Palestinian heritage.

“I didn’t want her to see other people as ‘other’, to view people with pity. I wanted her to feel she was part of that world. This was how her mum grew up too.”

The first playground was opened in Bethlehem in January 2003. Acquiring free land was straightforward. Many owners were happy to donate space. Working round restrictions on imports, shortages of materials and curfews has proved more challenging.

In 2005, the charity built a playground in the West Bank city of Nablus. As for all the sites, Susan was present for the installation. On this occasion, she was accompanied by Natalie, who was eight at the time.

“We worked on the plans before we went over. She envisaged this vast play city – an underground something or other, a waterfall. She had a child’s imagination, and of course it was way more than we could afford.” A “really long tube slide” was the element over which she refused to budge.

Involving children in the creation of the playgrounds is, Susan says, important. Where possible, the ultimate users of the park help in designing, landscaping, planting. “We want them to have a sense of ownership. To see this is their special place and refuge. It is not for adults.”

This, PfP volunteers have come to realise, is of particular consequence given the children’s experience. “Most of the kids suffer from post-traumatic stress symptoms. They often have a lot of aggression. Sometimes they want to destroy things. It is a way of trying to express how they are feeling. Putting their imprint on the playground helps them learn to take care of it.”

Play and leisure time are enshrined as basic human rights, for all children, in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. “Play is such an important part of child development – physical, cognitive, mental, social, psychological,” says Susan.

The playgrounds – which are handed over to local agencies to be managed in the long term – are designed with these needs in mind.

Other facilities include reading tents and plenty of opportunities for play. The charity is also now piloting a group play therapy programme in Gaza. There is, she explains, nothing like the mental health provision required for children there.

“If you ask them, they often say they are not scared. Then there is a noise and they jump. They show anxiety. We hear about bed-wetting, nightmares and so on.” Many of the playgrounds serve children living in refugee camps.

She understands something of their experience. Her parents separated soon after her birth and, with both of them seeking work elsewhere, she spent her early months with her grandmother – “a necessarily feisty young widow with lots of children and the need to make ends meet” – in Kuwait.

There followed several years with an uncle in America and a period when she was passed between relatives in Kuwait before Susan’s grandmother smuggled her – paperless – back to Jerusalem where she lived in the Dar al-Tifl al-Arabi orphanage.

Aged 13, she returned to the US and lived for a short while with her father before being placed in a succession of foster homes and, finally, a baptist children’s home.

“Having to fend largely for yourself as a child is not ideal,” she says. “But if you survive, it can also be empowering. It gave me a window on to the nature of people.”

She is also, she believes, less fearful of change, more confident that ultimately things will work out, than she might otherwise have been. “If you are alone and unprotected, you really cannot afford to dwell on being sad or bitter.”

In 2004, PfP built a playground in Gaza. “The kids were so excited they were already playing in the holes we dug for the posts. They would call in before and after school and they asked us not to let the workers carry anything they could organise themselves to manage.”

When the building was finally complete, children were asked to allow everything to dry overnight.

“There was one boy watching. His dad pleaded for him to have just one go. Seeing him go down the slide, so happy, with the sun setting, was just amazing.”

playgroundsforpalestine.org

• The Blue Between Sky and Water by Susan Abulhawa is published by Bloomsbury, £16.99. To order a copy for £13.59, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.