PLAYTELLIGENCE 2025 : Reimagining Learning In a world where traditional education often sidelines the importance of curiosity and joy, the PLAYTELLIGENCE Global Playshop 2025 emerged as a beacon of transformative learning. Hosted by the Global Play Brigade , this dynamic event welcomed 210 participants from 25 countries , representing 67 organizations —all united by a common belief: play is not just a fun activity; it’s an essential form of intelligence. Playtelligence is a term coined by GPB, it fuses ‘Play’ with ‘Intelligence,’ signifying an innovative way to approach education. It challenges outdated norms, suggesting that learning thrives not in rigidity but in curiosity, engaged collaboration, and yes, laughter. Playtelligence participants didn’t sit passively; instead, they embraced the unknown, danced with mistakes, explored environmental concerns through creative lenses, and rediscovered the joy of learning. Workshops that reshaped how educators and learners perceive growth and development. Susan Hillyard , a sociologist of education in Argentina and one of our inspiring hosts, reflected: “It’s beautiful to see teachers freed up to play. That’s what I witnessed at Playtelligence! The Educator Ensemble did a wonderful job bringing together such talented educators to facilitate a variety of offerings.” Luke Perone , a professor of psychology and human development in Hawaii, shared his thoughts on the closing session: “The final gathering was open and hopeful. There was genuine appreciation for the tools learned in small groups, and the collective energy was palpable.” A student participant reflected on the "Let's Dance with Mistakes" session: “The experience was both enriching and inspiring. Engaging with participants from so many countries fostered a sense of community. I left feeling energized and motivated to incorporate playful approaches into my own educational practices.” We celebrated diversity with sessions in English, Spanish, and Bengali , ensuring inclusivity and global participation. Translation tools enabled rich, cross-cultural exchanges , proving once again that imagination knows no borders . The impact of Playtelligence 2025 extends beyond the event itself. It has sown seeds of change in hearts and minds across the world. The vision is clear: to create joyful, collective, messy, and alive learning environments where both educators and students thrive through play. A special shout-out to the Brigadiers who produced and co-created PLAYTELLIGENCE: Susan Hillyard (Argentina), Luke Perone (USA), Toto Carandang (Philippines), Hikaru Hie (Japan), Mamiko Miyamoto (Japan), Vivianne Carrijo (Brazil), Levi Correa (Brazil), Manuela Kelly (Italy), Gwen Lowenheim (USA), Jim Martinez (USA), Meiko Kojima (Japan), Connie Shui-Yi (USA), Nancy Li (USA), Barbara A. Michaels (USA), Wycliffe Barasa (Kenya), Cristina Gioveni (Argentina), Carolyn Sealfon(Canada), Manolo Lopez (Spain), Ruben Reyes (Spain), Mariela Mondaca (Argentina), Manisita Khastaghir, Rev. Rodney Borneo (India), Ishita Sanyal (India) and Barbara Natalizia (USA). A big THANK YOU to our awesome tech team - Sarah Filman, Zara Barryte and Diane Whitehouse - thanks for being the true heroes behind-the-scenes, and making sure we all could stay connected and enjoy the session. Special thanks to YAHE & Cultivating Ensembles, for partnering with Global Play Brigade in making Playtelligence 2025 a huge success! As we look forward to the next Global Playshop called Heart and Power , we carry with us the giggles, belly laughs, meaningful gestures, and heartfelt connections formed during this transformative event. Until then, let’s all keep playing it forward .

Yvette Says Higher Education Needs More Play Imagine having a friend in every country of the world. Imagine being able to have coffee with someone anywhere in the world you go. Imagine an incredible boost in your confidence resulting in personal growth and exciting career opportunities. These are not mere imaginations, this is the everyday reality of Yvette Alcott since she joined the GPB movement in 2020. As a proud alum of the GPB Ambassadors Program, the program let Yvette build her confidence and transformed her into a lifetime advocate for play. One of the eureka moments that made her realize just how much her confidence had grown was a podcast interview she had with psychologist and educator Luke Perone. Despite being nervous at first, Yvette accepted the challenge and did incredibly well. During her podcast with Dr. Perone, Yvette had talked about the difficulties of incorporating play into higher education, where the focus is often solely on knowledge acquisition. Surprisingly, people from her former university listened to the podcast and as a result she was invited to conduct teamwork sessions using play, which were highly successful and well-received. This experience reiterated her belief that play is underutilized in educational settings and that there is a need to incorporate it more widely. As the leader of GPB Australia, Yvette shared a number of challenges she's been facing in making the GPB’s mission shine-through in an Australian context. She shared that she's constantly learning from the visionary and incredible leadership of Cathy Salit and Rita Ezenwa-Okoro in making play mainstream in Australia. Despite the challenges she might face, Yvette is not giving up! Chatting with Yvette was truly reassuring, comforting and inspiring. Hearing her share these stories about a boost in confidence, making new friends globally, and exciting career opportunities made us see just how much impact the Global Play Brigade has had and is having on the lives of those who come in contact with it. We hope Yvette's story inspires and helps you become a part of the people that are serious about Play! Here’s a link to the podcast.

Wycliffe’s Got the “Play Flu” Hope, excitement and passion - these are three words that summarised the chat with Wycliffe. As a social entrepreneur focused on the educational sector, Wycliffe is using the power of play, creativity and improvisation to shape the educational landscape in Kenya and beyond. It was really exciting to hear Wycliffe share inspiring stories on how he's using play to break old moulds and create new ones in his community, among school children especially in STEM subjects. For example, he uses music to teach students about the periodic table - something students struggle to memorize. With music, the students no longer struggled with memorisation but just sang the periodic table song. Wycliffe doesn't stop there! He's constantly telling every educator and student who cares to listen that FAILURE IS A FRIEND, and not an enemy like we all perceive it to be. He tells young learners that failure should be seen as learning opportunities and stepping stones to the world of discovery. And he's always reminding educators that without failure, these learners can't grow! Wycliffe recounted the very rejuvenating experience of being part of the facilitators of the recently concluded PLAYTELLIGENCE playshops . He shared how exciting it was to plan and co-host a playshop alongside Cristina Gioveni from Argentina & Mamiko Miyamoto from Japan. As they met (virtually) several times before the event to plan their session, Wycliffe saw how different and yet similar human beings are, despite where we're geographically situated, our cultural differences, our skin colours or ages. The workshop on playing with mistakes made him realize just how mistakes are being frowned on all over the world. As a proud alum of the GPB Ambassadors Program, Wycliffe is unstoppable and committed to the mission of making play mainstream, especially in education. Wycliffe dreams to someday have webcams installed in 20 schools across Kenya. Why, you ask? To connect these students to a world of play and a global community of playmates. It's his desire that these students someday be a part of the magic that happens at GPB Playshops. Chatting with Wycliffe for almost an hour left us feeling so excited. Wycliffe has caught the “Play Flu”, and it doesn't look like it's leaving him anytime soon. While Wycliffe is resounding the message of play in Kenya, others are doing so in Australia, USA, Japan, and everywhere else we have Ambassadors. Little by little, we'll have a world where play is not just for children, but is a serious conversation for people of all ages and races. Till then, we'll keep cheering Wycliffe on!

Your global organization/community really needs your help! A few small part-time salaries. Hosting our website, Mailchimp, our database, Zoom, a whole bunch of technology software. Our fabulous communications team, based in Nigeria. Non-profit status expenses. Social media marketing. Translation services. Our current tiny but powerful grassroots operation costs $115,000 US a year. So we're trying to come up with creative and organic ways to cover these costs. We started a Circle of Friends made up of folks who give between $2500 and $25K. We invite people to "pay whatever they can" for our free online events, if they can (but they don't have to!). We've got some wonderful sustainer friends who contribute between $5 to $250 monthly. Some business folks who have experienced the transformative power of play have given us between $5000 and $50,000 over the past few years. The leadership consultancy Performance of a Lifetime and the hub for performance activism the East Side Institute have been very generous with their dollars, their advice and their networks. We just got a small foundation grant which we're so excited about. And we love, love, love the numerous one-time donations between $1 and $100 made by our GPB supporters around the world. By the way, did you know that folks in the US can get a tax write-off for their contributions. Yep! That's the truth. And so we need your help more than ever. What an incredible year we've had; introducing the innovative and humanizing methodology of play to thousands of new people across the globe in the fields of mental health, education and grassroots activism. Graduating 13 brand new Global Play Brigade Ambassadors through the rigorous GPB Ambassador program. You all have helped make that happen; by volunteering, your participation, spreading the word, your showing up/taking risks/building this global community. And when you make a contribution (again, of ANY SIZE) before the end of 2024 you will receive your very own Global Play Brigade Gold Star! That's right folks. A gold star!

The Global Play Brigade is obsessed. We’re playfully obsessed with helping to bring the creative, innovative, disruptive and transformative power of play into areas of mainstream life that are in dire need of creativity, innovation, disruption and transformation.  So in 2024, we decided to create themes for our global gatherings as a way to focus our collective efforts on particular aspects of our lives/world where integrating PLAY could make a significant difference. Here’s how! In March we explored PLAY for mental health at our global gathering across borders. With the rise in mental illness and distress across all cultures, we sorely need new approaches and practices to support people in need. In June, we experimented with PLAY for learning and education for all ages with our festival of Playtelligence. Traditional and out-dated approaches to education are limiting students, teachers and parents in creativity, critical thinking and social cohesion. And a few weeks ago, our November Changemakers Play Festival introduced PLAY for professional development to changemakers to continue to grow their social missions. It was designed not just to utilize play methodology for skills like communication, collaboration, innovation and leadership, but also to consider weaving play into the fabric of social activism— a field that also needs innovation and fresh thinking, now more than ever. 200 people from 30 countries gathered on Zoom. Buoyed by a new (amazing!) translation software program (that we taught participants how to use on-the-spot), we welcomed activists from as far and wide as Australia, Venezuela, Mexico, the Netherlands, South Africa, Ghana, Serbia, Japan, India, Italy, Canada, Nigeria, Argentina and the US, to name just a few of the nations present. Leaders and team members from over 40 different organizations participated. And what a rich diversity of organizations they were! Gender equality groups from The Netherlands, Spain and Nigeria. Environmental organizations from Nigeria and the US. University programs and educators from Pakistan, Canada, Belgrade and Argentina. Mental health hotlines and programs from the US, South Africa and the UK. Youth development programs from Pittsburgh, US and Lagos, Nigeria. Anti-poverty and Sustainability projects from Ghana to Nigeria, and senior citizen centers and organizations from New Zealand to the US. The Changemakers Festival was hosted by the vibrant and talented Mamiko Miyamoto from Japan, the academic powerhouse Jorge Burciaga Montoya from Mexico, the passionate performance activist Ruben Reyes Jiron from Nicaragua/Spain and of course our wonderful and esteemed Executive Director, Rita Ezenwa-Okoro. In her welcoming remarks, she commented; “ It is through playing together that we can build communities across borders and barriers and discover the possibilities of co-creating and renewing our world.” The 200 participants were hard at work and play exploring new possibilities. Rita’s words resonated throughout the event, fueling every conversation and session. A truly gifted and multilingual and cross cultural Brigadier/Facilitator volunteer team designed and presented 10 workshops in both English and Spanish (with additional languages through the translation tool we mentioned above!). The workshops covered so much interactive ground: Conversations, Teamwork and Collaboration, Creative Campaigning, Powergames in the workplace, Presentations and communication, Navigating uncertainty, Co-creating Freedom, Cultivating resilience, and the power of Storytelling. A special shout out to the Global Play Brigadiers who produced and presented at this special gathering: Alex Sutherland, Aylwyn Walsh, Barbara Ann Michaels, Cathy Salit, Chidinma Osigwe, Daniel Maposa, Diane Whitehouse, Hikaru Hie, Jordan Hirsch, Jorge Burciaga Montoya, Kahlil Bagatsing, Mamiko Miyamoto, Manolo Lopez, Marko Vučetić, Martha McCoy, Miguel Cortes, Pelemo Nyajo, Raquell Holmes, Rick Horner, Rita Ezenwa-Okoro, Ruben Reyes Jiron, Sarah Filman, Sean Kwan, Susan Hillyard, Victoria Hogg, Yvette Alcott, and Zara Barryte. And special thanks to our partner organization Freedom Festival!

Pelemo Nyajo is a GPB ambassador and a radical artist who works at the intersection of creative arts and sustainable development, using her art to shift harmful narratives, engage the heart and mind. She advocates for disability inclusion through her initiative ‘Disability with Pel,’ where her vision is to mainstream disability inclusion.

The Spirit of Play A journey starts, uncharted and free We go on a path together Where we are more open to not knowing Embracing the joy of spontaneity A reminder of how freeing play can be And that we don’t need much to play Just hearts eager to connect Laughter as our guide Connecting with new people, hearing their stories Each voice a note in our shared symphony Confidence is contagious Like ripples in a pond Don’t overthink! Let intuition lead the way Own your story Speaking it with energy! And we learned to build on someone else's work— Every contribution, a stepping stone. Did you know we have an ability to connect Without using words? Silent understanding blooms Authenticity! And sometimes that is more powerful Be present – a mantra in the stillness A playground for the mind and spirit Games motivated us to be more creative Y’know, everyone has boundless creativity Waiting to be sparked. At the GPB Changemakers Play Festival Ideas dance and collide A community united in this tapestry of play We weave connections that last A reminder that together We are on the path to joy (This poem was created from the chat comments of Changemakers PlayFest and then creatively edited)

Africans Unite for Play