Global Play Brigade

CHANGEMAKERS PLAYFEST 2025: Creating Power Through Play

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 17:42:34 GMT

CHANGEMAKERS PLAYFEST 2025: Creating Power Through Play

If there are two things that define Global Play Brigade, it’s this:

First, we love to experiment. We breathe it, build with it, and follow through. GPB isn’t just curious; we are invested in the process and its lessons.

Secondly, we love partnerships. Whenever we see an organization dreaming in the direction we dream, we run toward them joyfully, arms open, ready to build something bigger, wider, and wilder.

These two parts of who we are collided beautifully at the Changemakers Playfest 2025. GPB featured on Day One of the Performing The World (PTW) 2025, titled: Meandering Through the Mess . It was a conference within a conference, a global playground nestled inside another. Woven into the PTW ecosystem, the energy was electric.

GPB’s Executive Director, Rita Ezenwa-Okoro, opened the Changemakers Play Festival with words that set the tone. She spoke of faith and turning mess into message, how changemakers need to navigate complexities without succumbing to burnout, and how play offers a radical way to imagine new possibilities and create hope.

Watch Rita’s speech here!

One of the participants reflected:

“Rita’s speech didn’t just inspire; it was tactile, lived, and actionable. Her words invited participants to sit with complexity without fear, to recognize that navigating mess isn’t chaos, it’s courage in motion.”

One of the facilitators added:

“Her remarks slowed everyone down, encouraging a collective meandering, turning abstract ideas into lived experience. The festival began not with instruction, but with invitation: to play, to explore, and to build together.”

The Art of Connected Conversations playshop turned ordinary talk into bridges. Led by Cathy Salit (USA) and Kahlil Bagatsing (Philippines/USA), participants discovered that listening can be playful, bold, and transformative. “I never knew a conversation could feel like a bridge,” one participant reflected. Their conversations became a space for curiosity, care, and co-creation.

Teamwork Makes the Dreamwork sparked laughter and delightful absurdity. Hikaru Hie (Japan), Yvette Alcott (Australia), and Toto Carandang (Philippines) invited participants into improvisational chaos. Everyone became experts at impossible tasks, discovering that teamwork thrives in trust, surprise, and shared play.

Power Games in the Workplace / Los Juegos de Poder en Ambientes de Trabajo made invisible dynamics visible. Viviane Carrijo (Brazil), Jordan Hirsch (USA), and Carlos Gaviria (Colombia) guided participants through theater games exploring dominance, influence, and collaboration. One participant reflected, “I’ve been both the oppressor and the oppressed, and play can help us imagine new ways forward.” Power became something to explore, understand, and transform together.

Connection and intimacy unfolded in unexpected ways. In one exercise, participants shared the (his)story of their names and responded to each other with curiosity and reflection. Strangers became collaborators within minutes. The festival showed that play isn’t just fun, it’s a strategy for building trust, creativity, and global community. Across continents and cultures, laughter, improvisation, and shared curiosity revealed our common humanity, while playful experimentation offered new ways to imagine, collaborate, and lead with care.

HEART & POWER: Bringing the World Closer to Wellness

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 16:58:26 GMT

HEART & POWER: Bringing the World Closer to Wellness

In a world where over 1 billion people are living with mental-health disorders and only one in five get the help they need, Global Play Brigadiers converged this past August at our Heart and Power Playshop to explore the question: How can we bring the world closer to wellness through play? Our carefully curated playshops included:

In Embodied Empathy , people didn’t just talk about feelings; they moved them. One participant described the moment they felt another person’s sadness through a simple hand gesture, saying, “It was like my body understood before my mind did.” Guided by Christopher Ellinger (USA) and Jacek Kulkuk (Poland), the Zoom room softened. People softened. Empathy became physical.

In What Is Wellness? , a big shift happened. Someone said, “I always thought wellness was personal, but now I see it’s something we build together.” With Lambert Oigara (Kenya), Jeff Gordon (Israel), Jenn Bullock (USA), and Muneeb ur Rehman (Pakistan), wellness became communal, a shared construction site where everyone created new tools.

Imagine watching someone’s story turn into choreography; a literal dance of lived experience. Led by Ruben Reyes (Spain), Zara Barryte (USA), Sally Oimbo (Kenya), and Prudence Omale (Nigeria), Story-o-graphy gave participants a chance to see their stories move through another person’s body. It wasn’t just creative. It was healing.

Rainbows of Emotions gave us the full colour spectrum of human feelings, from joy to grief to curiosity to frustration. It finally made sense that emotions aren’t good or bad… they’re information, one participant reflected. Steered by Ishita Sanyal (India), Manisita Khastagir (India), Rick Horner (USA), and Medhavi Parmar (India), people painted emotional rainbows with movement, sound, and imagination.

Heart & Power didn’t end when Zoom closed. It ignited a new awareness that wellness isn’t a luxury, but a shared responsibility. People walked away with softer hearts, deeper breaths, and a renewed sense of connection across borders, cultures, and personal histories. It reminded us that play can be a global mental-health intervention. It can be one that honours the emotional, cultural, spiritual, and embodied realities.

To every participant who danced, moved, cried, laughed, breathed, and played with us, we say THANK YOU. To our brilliant Playcilitators, thank you for guiding the world with courage and creativity. To our hosts, Rita Ezenwa-Okoro (Nigeria), Charly Ford (USA), Murray Dabby (USA), and Medhavi Parmar (India), your presence set the tone on both days. And to our indispensable tech team, you made HEART AND POWER come to life!

Click to listen to the insightful musings on Heart & Power by Rita, our Executive Director!

Click here to read the collaborative poem created by Heart & Power participants!

Bringing the World Closer to Wellness

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 16:37:16 GMT

Heart and Power

You can count on me
in a more peaceful world,
where collective power rises softly
our heart, our strongest muscle,
working our whole life.

Playing is the outward evidence of wellness,
listening to the rhythm of your heartbeat,
because play heals.
Try to have joy in life every day
inhaling the wind, opening our lungs,
laughing together.

Sing, sing, sing
reaching out to join our hands and hearts
with courage and grace.
Having heart is a meaningful start,
so do your part
together we co-create new possibilities
for wellness in the world.

Listening into creating responses, fly…
Physical presence, or a respectful, trustful distance
both create space for new possibilities.

Play with our heart
while empowering others with love,
because we’re in it to win it,
and the heart is a source of power.

Flow freely in the world
together we are powerful,
together we heal.
We dance our stories together,
breaking vicious cycles together,
with courage and kindness, we walk together.
together we heal.

Our heart rules our health
and our evolution.
Power comes from full hearts
dancing together
tender hearts, caring minds
together we love
and embrace differences
with joy.

(This poem was created from the chat comments of Heart and Power.)

Susan Hillyard Shares her Vision for the Future of Education

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 16:00:54 GMT

GPB Ambassador, Susan Hillyard, Shares her Vision for the Future of Education

Hear ye, hear ye! GPB has its very first GPB Correspondent. That’s right (snap!). She is Godsdelight Agu, a writer, storyteller, and mental health advocate from Lagos, Nigeria. She has been on a quest to get to know more about our Global Play Brigadiers. Her discoveries? The genius, heartfelt, and artful stories of Brigadier Susan Hillyard (Argentina). The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Traditional teaching methods are why schools are full of “dullards.” This was a term I couldn’t wave off after my hour-long conversation with educator, author, teacher trainer, facilitator, and play activist, Susan Hillyard.

For almost four decades, Susan has taken on the challenging yet rewarding task of educating students of all ages. She has worked in over 17 countries, including Argentina, China, Singapore, Spain, and Saudi Arabia, and early on, she experienced the limitations of traditional (i.e., dullard) teaching methods, especially after seeing how learners struggled with English as a Second Language. This inspired Susan to create her signature teaching method (SHELTA) , which adds drama training to the Second Language Acquisition theory. Whether teaching English to special needs children in Argentina, at the Ministry of Education in Buenos Aires, to professors in China, or educators across the world, she is a staunch believer in making education more inclusive.

Susan has long felt that drama was key to that, but since joining the GPB, she now feels that play across ages and stages creates the necessary environment for that. When I asked Susan why play is so important in education, she took a long pause and spoke from her heart:

“ Because play reduces stress. Play improves mood and cognitive development. Play helps in building community and fostering better communication among students.”

Susan believes that learners shouldn’t just have a high Intelligence Quotient (IQ), but a high Play Quotient (PQ) too. Her dream, along with GPB, is to make play mainstream in education.

Susan told me about a recent presentation she gave at the SHARE Convention in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The convention was titled, Transforming English Teaching for Global Impact. Susan’s session, " Play at Any Age, at Every Stage" , was about the need for playful learning to enhance student engagement, to reduce stress, and the importance of play throughout different stages of life. Her session was attended by young learners, older students, and managers of English Language Teaching schools. Like all of Susan’s presentations, it was infused with playful activities, giving participants a felt experience of the transformative power of play. I was so inspired hearing this and other stories she shared about how non-English speakers rapidly become able to converse in English through play, youthful offenders becoming performers, and special needs children learning faster and more easily.

I can’t help but imagine how much fun learning would be and how different our world would be if more educators were like Susan. This is why we’re dedicated to upping the PQ (Play Quotient), as Susan says. Let’s make Play Mainstream!

Lambert Oigara on his Discovery of the Magic of Art in Psychology

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 15:17:31 GMT

GPB Africa leader, Lambert Oigara, on his Discovery of the Magic of Art in Psychology

Hear ye, hear ye! GPB has its very first GPB Correspondent. That’s right (snap!). She is Godsdelight Agu, a writer, storyteller, and mental health advocate from Lagos, Nigeria. She has been on a quest to get to know more about our Global Play Brigadiers. Her discoveries? The genius, heartfelt, and artful stories of Brigadier Lambert Oigara (Kenya). The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Lambert never planned to be a psychologist. As a boy, he simply wanted to follow in the footsteps of his uncle, a celebrated artist who travelled the world. He described his uncle with a softness that only comes from deep admiration. But then, almost in a whisper, he told me his uncle died by suicide.

That loss didn’t just shape him. It rerouted his entire life.

In the middle of grief, he found himself flipping through his mother’s textbooks when she was studying HIV counselling. He wasn’t looking for answers, just comfort. In that “flipping the pages”, he noticed something that tugged at him: Why were there drawings in books about mental health? Could art really heal? That small curiosity became the beginning of everything.

When Lambert discovered Art Therapy, it was like the missing piece of his world clicked into place. Art and psychology didn’t have to live apart. They could meet, merge, and give people what words sometimes couldn’t.

Fresh out of high school, he was invited to work in a psychiatric unit as an Art Facilitator, long before he had any professional training. That first opportunity set him on a path that has now stretched over twenty years. As he spoke about hustling through part-time classes at the University of Nairobi in Kenya while working three days a week in the psychiatric unit, I could hear both pride and gratitude. He didn’t wait for perfect conditions. He built his career while helping people heal. Then came his Master’s in Clinical Psychology at USIU-Africa, another step toward combining science with the creative heart he never lost.

Today, Lambert’s approach to therapy feels like a blend of everything he has lived - expressive arts, movement, play, and clinical psychology. He doesn’t treat people from a distance; he meets them where they are, with colour, rhythm, and curiosity. He told me about working with clients navigating anxiety, depression, and schizoaffective disorders. The way he described them was filled with respect, not labels. “People bloom when they feel safe,” he said, and in his hands, therapy becomes a space for blooming.

This belief came even more alive for Lambert during the recent Heart and Power Playshop, where he co-facilitated a GPB session for the first time, “What is Wellness?” Listening to him describe that experience, it was clear the playshop wasn’t just an event. It was a reminder:

“Wellness isn’t a destination. It’s a reflection. It’s enrichment. It’s the courage to be vulnerable in front of people who hold you kindly.”

Lambert carries this philosophy into CBT Kenya, the private practice he built, and into his work with GPB Africa and the Mental Health Ensemble. He sees play not as a technique but as a way of life, especially for people working in mental health. Before we ended our conversation, he left me with a sentence that stayed with me long after: “Play is important in mental health because it makes us whole.”

And hearing his story, from childhood dreams to deep loss, from art to healing, I understood exactly what he meant.

Ohemaa Poku is Changing the Future of Mental Health

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 14:41:44 GMT

One of our newest brigadiers, Ohemaa Poku, is changing the Future of Mental Health

Hear ye, hear ye! GPB has its very first GPB Correspondent. That’s right (snap!). She is Godsdelight Agu, a writer, storyteller, and mental health advocate from Lagos, Nigeria. She has been on a quest to get to know more about our Global Play Brigadiers. Her discoveries? The genius, heartfelt, and artful stories of Brigadier Ohemaa Poku (USA). The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Assistant Professor Ohemaa Poku, PhD, MPH, MSW, grew up at the intersection of three worlds: the United States, the Caribbean, and Ghana.

Ohemaa shared with me that throughout her childhood, mental health simply wasn’t something people talked about. As she spoke, I could hear the weight of the cultural silence she grew up around. Silence in the home, among friends, and even among relatives who were doctors and nurses. What moved me was that what has come to be her life’s work didn’t come from academic curiosity; it came from personal absence, and that gap stayed with her. It made her wonder: " If we don’t talk about this, how many people are suffering in the shadows?"

Instead of turning away, she leaned in. She chose a path that many people in her communities didn’t even have a language for yet. And she wanted to serve African and immigrant populations, those who carry not just the burden of illness, but the burden of cultural expectations, migration stress, and stigma.

As she shared the story of her journey, from her role as Assistant Professor of Global Mental Health at Columbia University, to teaching the next generation of clinicians, to her research with adolescents, I realized how deeply personal all of this is for her. Teaching isn’t a job; it’s her way of giving others the tools she wished her own community had while growing up. And so not surprisingly, one of the most rewarding parts of her job is “watching people grow into the professionals our communities need.”

But the part of our conversation that surprised me most was when she began talking about play. For years, she worked in traditional research and clinical spaces, including a mentorship with One Mind . But joining the Global Play Brigade (GPB) shifted something. She described GPB like a breath of fresh air; a space where psychologists, social workers, and psychiatrists come together not just to talk about mental health but to humanize it.

Play, she believes, does what lectures and charts often cannot do. It lowers defenses. It invites connection. It turns discomfort into courage. And in communities where stigma runs deep, play can open doors that therapy alone struggles to unlock. By the end of our conversation, I wasn’t thinking about her credentials. I was thinking about the young people she studies, the immigrant families she advocates for, and the future professionals she trains. I was thinking about how much it matters that someone like her exists in these spaces.

Ohemaa isn’t just researching mental health; she’s rewriting who gets to talk about it, who gets to access it, and what it looks like when culture, compassion, and play meet. She does this through her work as an Assistant Professor of Global Mental Health (in Psychiatry) and Director of Education and Training Initiatives for the Columbia-WHO Center for Global Mental Health at Columbia University, where she shapes the minds of her students, who in turn become future mental health professionals.

She believes play can help us change the conversation. After listening to her story, I believe Ohemaa is right.

GLOBAL PLAY BRIGADE AT FIVE

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 13:39:12 GMT

Global Play Brigade at Five (that’s 5 years old, people!)

Five years ago, in the thick of a global pandemic and a world that was in crisis, isolated, frightened, and unsure, 75+ play and performance activists across continents asked a daunting question: How can we respond to this crisis? How can we be of support to our fellow human beings? Our answer: Let’s bring strangers across borders and barriers to PLAY together.

So we did that (in fact, many of YOU reading this did that). And now five years on, 20,000 strangers from 108 countries via 523 free playshops online made possible with 125+ volunteers have improvised, danced, listened, shared stories, clowned, cried, shouted, learned, grown, and laughed across borders, languages, and time zones.

On June 8th, 2025, we celebrated those five years of the Global Play Brigade community, in a kind of reunion, recommitment, and remembering. The border crossers showed up! We played. We reflected. We laughed. We cried. We ran a campaign in commemoration of this special milestone and tagged it a $5 for 5 years campaign . Our goal: $2,500 . Guess what? Together, we hit our target ; powered not by big donors, but by small, meaningful gifts from our amazing community.

And we received heartwarming love letters from many of you from across the world. Click here to read some of these loving messages to GPB.

And so you see that GPB@5 is not the end of this playful and powerful experiment; it's the beginning of new volumes of possibilities for social change through the strategic integration of play across all ages and vocations of life.

PLAYTELLIGENCE 2025 : Reimagining Learning

Thu, 15 May 2025 13:51:03 GMT

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

Thu, 15 May 2025 13:36:35 GMT

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”

Thu, 15 May 2025 13:24:13 GMT

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!

Can you make a year end donation?

hello@globalplaybrigade.org (Global Play Brigade) — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 11:51:46 GMT

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!

GPB Changemakers Play Festival

hello@globalplaybrigade.org (Global Play Brigade) — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 19:54:42 GMT

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!

We received wonderful feedback from the changemakers in attendance. In the Flash Poll we held on the day(s) of, we learned:

78 people felt more connected to the global community as a result of the gathering

77 people said they now feel empowered to integrate play into their work

74 people are planning to share what they learned with their organization or team(s)

In a phone call afterwards, one of the participants shared

I believe in the value of connecting with others, and the GPB Changemakers Festival made it so easy. There we were, in a Zoom room full of so many different kinds of people/cultures who didn’t know each other – from all over the planet. The energy and talent was truly awesome. Honestly, I’ve really never experienced anything like it, and didn’t know it was possible. Playing together frees us all to be ourselves, and to really make a difference in the world. The Global Play Brigade is gold.

In the group chat after we all returned from the workshops, we heard

Today's session had a profound impact on me, but one thing that stood out was the importance of genuine appreciation and gratitude in building strong relationships.

It is really humbling to have the whole world in the room together working on transforming ourselves and our practice.

I found a new thought process…storytelling can be indeed transformative.

Being power hungry often comes from me feeling powerless. We explored when we were powerless and when we hurt others.

I would love to workshop the ideas shared on this platform. I learnt that some frameworks/principles can be interpreted into play.

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)

Whew! The Changemakers PlayFest truly was a convergence of cultures, languages, causes, countries, and people—a melting pot of caring and passionate souls coming to learn how to activate change in new, creative, and powerful ways.

Reflections of a GPB Ambassador

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 19:26:04 GMT

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 Global Play Brigade Ambassadors Program was serendipity to me, the universe conspiring to give me new tools, community and a safe space to experiment, connect, create with other crazy radical performance activists like me. It is almost contradictory to be in the development space and want to play . It's not uncommon for people to laugh at or dismiss these ideas, suggesting that we need to adopt more "serious" strategies to make change. For years, I struggled with how to introduce this radical idea into my work, but the GPB Ambassadors Program gave me the courage to break through my fears. I learned that the walls I imagined were actually made of straws.

This program showed me that indeed, transformation can happen in virtual rooms, where people from all corners of the world come together, share their stories, and play with each other. It was an experience that deepened my belief in the power of play—because, as Cathy Salit says, "play softens the borders between us." And in this inaugural cohort of the Global Play Brigade Ambassadors Program, it was as if the borders between us truly disappeared.

The program is an intentional convergence of thinkers, performers, and leaders from across the globe. In this first cohort, we came together as 13 passionate performance activists from 11 different countries, each committed to promoting play as a tool for positive change. From May to August 2024, we were guided by GPB's Executive Director, the amazing Rita Ezenwa-Okoro, and Founder, the wonderful Cathy Salit, alongside experts in play, performance, and community organizing.

It was designed to equip us with the tools to promote play as a transformative force across different sectors—education, workplaces, and communities. It was about understanding the pivotal role play can have in human development, especially during challenging times. But more than that, it was about connecting with each other through interactive conversations, role-playing as leaders, sharing ideas on how we can tell the revolutionary story of the Global Play Brigade to the world.

Permit me to fangirl about the visionaries we interacted with, like Lois Holzman—God, is she brilliant—who insists that play is for people of all ages, and is a vital part of human development. Shadae McDaniel walks the talk with the All Stars Project in the USA, giving young people a safe space to dream out loud through their unconventional performance methods and how this creates real change.

My personal favourite part of the program was having a scene partner. We were all paired with people from other countries, which made it easier to connect and learn from each other.

As I reflect on all that it was for me, I honour the stories, passions and light from the other 12 amazing ambassadors who actively gave to this—through their time, participation, stories, and souls. I am so proud to say that we are now ambassadors for play, committed to advocating for its power to bring about positive social change in the world.

We graduated formally on November 15 and 16, 2024 during the Changemakers Play Festival. It was a bittersweet experience—because one can’t ever fully be ready to leave such a safe and beautiful space. I’m looking ahead, and the ambassadorship has only begun. For the first time ever, I co-facilitated a session during a Global Playshop! I’m excited about what all 13 of us will do through play and in collaboration with the Global Play Brigade.

The Spirit of Play

hello@globalplaybrigade.org (Global Play Brigade) — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:59:50 GMT

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)

GPB Africa Launch

Tue, 27 Aug 2024 21:00:42 GMT

Africans Unite for Play

Africa is stuck in a cycle of poverty. Stuck in a cycle of corruption. We are certainly not the first people to point that out. We are also not the first people to ask what to do about it. It’s a tough, complex, and painful history that continues to hurt and harm the peoples of our continent. And so we are stuck. Our Executive Director, Rita Ezenwa-Okoro, has a bold proposition: Play can help Africa get unstuck.

Play - and therefore creativity, imagination, and improvisation – is a crucial ingredient for innovation and social progress. Without play, we stagnate, and the social injustices that plague our societies remain unaddressed. For Africa to thrive, Rita believes that we must embrace play as a vital part of our culture.

At the recent GPB Africa Launch, over 50 passionate participants joined from Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. In an intense and colorful dialogue, we heard from powerful speakers — Elizabeth Adams, Alex Sutherland, and Rita Ezenwa-Okoro — who shared their experiences of using play to empower educators, activists, and social workers. Their stories illuminate how play can unleash the incredible potential of Africans.

Elizabeth Adams , an advocate for individuals with albinism and a dedicated educator, shared her innovative approaches to rekindling communication and teamwork among teachers after the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Through initiatives like Teachers Circle Time and Playing with Emotions, Elizabeth introduced play and improvisation for her staff – creating a safe environment that fostered collaboration and productivity. Breaking down the communication barriers between the teachers in turn supports the education and development of the students, the future of Africa.

Then we heard from Alex Sutherland , a passionate performance activist and former university professor. She shared her journey of bringing play into unexpected places in South Africa—like prisons and psychiatric hospitals, and with street children who used victimhood to make money. Alex and her team encouraged the street kids to use their creativity and performance arts to tell stories. These children have gone on to become regular performers at the National Arts Festival and are no longer seen as victims but as storytellers in their own rights who have had the opportunity to travel from a small village in South Africa to England for that purpose. Alex’s work shows that play can transform even the most challenging environments and create meaningful connections.

The energy in the room (or rather, the Zoom call!) was electric, with attendees eager to share their thoughts. Here are a few standout reflections:

Lambert said, “Play equals wellbeing! I can’t wait to keep this momentum going.”

Wankoyo added, “We need to make play a part of our culture, so it becomes natural for everyone, regardless of age”

Beatrice’s question sparked a lively discussion: “Where do we draw the line between sports and play?” Rita responded, “Sports can be competitive, but the play we advocate for is about uplifting everyone and celebrating individuality.”

Cedric chimed in, sharing his personal philosophy: “It’s not about the activity itself; it’s about how we approach it. If we focus too much on competition, we risk losing the joy and creativity that play brings.”

At GPB, we’re on a mission to integrate play into every aspect of life—whether it’s engineering, medicine, or sports. With the launch of GPB Africa, we’re committed to making play a cornerstone of development across the continent.

We invite you to be part of this exciting journey! If you’re passionate about play and want to contribute your skills and creativity, please fill out this FORM with your information. And don’t forget to join our WhatsApp group to stay updated on all things GPB.

Save the Date! On September 21, 2024, GPB Africa will host its first regional playshop, PAMOJA: A Playful Africa . We’d love to see you there.

Let’s break down the barriers that keep Africa stuck and discover the transformative power of play together.

What is Playtelligence?

Tue, 27 Aug 2024 20:49:50 GMT

PLAYTELLIGENCE: Play & Learning Beyond Borders - Our Reflection

We, the people, need to play, all ages, every day.

This was the call to action at the recently concluded Playtelligence Global Play Shop in June. This was a collective playful exploration of over 200 teachers, students, and lifelong learners from 23 countries.

At GPB, we are constantly asking the question, how can play help us reimagine our world anew? How can play inspire change intergenerationally across systems? In her book, Deep Play , the American poet and author Diane Ackerman writes, "Play is our brain's favorite way of learning." We love that statement. And in fact, we also believe that our hearts, our arms, our legs, our noses, our tummies – also love learning through play!

So, incorporating all of who we are — how do we integrate play into all forms of learning and development?

During the playshop, we had conversations and engaged in activities that hit us hard and soft (like Billie Eilish would). The focus wasn’t on perfection but on embracing every idea and thereby rethinking what education could be. We saw first-hand the relationship between play and learning, and how incorporating play could be a game-changer globally.

Our generous and creative facilitators and brigadiers across continents showed us how with these eight playshops:

Put On Your Dandelion Glasses: Regeneration through Nature & Play
Improv for Teachers
Improvisation & Fundraising
Rev Up Your Play-o-meter with Us
Play with Science & Arts
Let's Dance with Mistakes
Embrace uncertainty:
Rediscovering Education

With every facilitator bringing in their A-game, each workshop was carefully curated, therapeutic, and left a lasting impression on the participants' minds, which can be seen in some of the following reflections:

“Failure and Mistake is really a great playground for discovery and understanding if we frame it as such.”

“If we are happy and everything is going well, it’s easy to feel happy. But when things are difficult and challenging, you feel more worried when you make mistakes. We need to believe that we can always play through mistakes.”

“I want intergenerational play, where young and old all play together, with deep belly laughs till you are almost crying.”

“My wish is that people should show up authentically for themselves and who they are, and be accepted and loved.”

“At first, whenever I make mistakes, I feel dumb. But now, I feel making mistakes is a chance to improve myself.”

We had conversations that led us to see that life is full of uncertainty. And if that be the case, it’s okay to feel uncertain. Unlike what is often experienced in typical classrooms where mistakes are often criticised and leave us feeling worthless, ashamed, and unworthy, we learnt how to dance when we make mistakes. We revved up our play-o-meters and learnt how educators can switch learning up in the classroom by guiding learners to demonstrate a poem and embody their answers. We learnt how to activate our left and right brains to co-create and collaborate, which is also known as activating your PLAY QUOTIENT (PQ as opposed to IQ).

We were thrilled to receive a letter from Father Borneo, an educator and Principal of St. Augustine’s Day School, Shyamnagar, India after he attended the playshop. Here’s an excerpt:

“Thanks to the entire team of GPB India for organizing a virtual workshop on the playful learning process on 29.07.24. It was a unique experience for both the Students and Teachers, who participated in the workshop and got acquainted with the various methods and activities of the playful learning process. I think this is high time for the educators and syllabus committee members of the various educational boards in India to adopt the methodology of playful learning and induct it to our education system. It will help the students to think out of the box and to venture beyond the common boundaries of their academic curriculum. The playful learning education system will guide the students to the pathway of joyful learning, which will bring success and mark the progress of such endeavors.”

We agree Father Borneo! His feedback is a testament to the desire and need for new approaches to learning. These kinds of feedback keep us going and yearning to continue to work to bring play into the mainstream of life.

A big thank you to the GPB Educators Salon led by Brigadiers Hikaru Hie and Mamiko Miyamoto and to all our playful and energetic facilitators and brigadiers from USA, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, China, Argentina, Germany, Canada, Nigeria, India and Tunisia, for designing these amazing playshops and their immense contributions to making Playtelligence a huge success. We appreciate everyone's time, resources, creativity and belief in the power of play, and improvisation in shaping learning in our world. A special mention and appreciation to Brigadier Ishita Sanyal for her intentional mobilization of players in the education system in India.

We look forward to creating more magical moments at our next Playshop, coming up in October 2024!

Celebrating 4 Years

Tue, 27 Aug 2024 20:33:27 GMT

GPB Turned 4 in June

In the wake of the pandemic in 2020, a spark ignited that would alter the landscape of building community and creativity. 75 passionate performance and play activists—improvisers, educators, musicians, actors, playwrights, scholars, clowns, therapists, and coaches—came together over Zoom, united by a shared mission: to support one another and thousands of our fellow humans across 50 countries as we navigated the storm of COVID-19.

What began as a heartfelt response to a global crisis has blossomed into something extraordinary.

Fast forward four years, and GPB has transformed from a hopeful experiment into a dynamic global movement, reaching almost 16,000 people from 100 countries. We now boast a vibrant community of 130 dedicated volunteers, all committed to fostering connections and creating new possibilities for social change through the transformative power of play. We’ve set our sights firmly on the future, going beyond the “carcasses of the past” and embracing a bold vision: Make Play Mainstream.

Our journey keeps evolving. Initially, we hosted spontaneous play workshops every week. Today, we are proud to be leaders within a global movement that shines a light on the importance of play in various mainstream spheres of life. In 2024, our thematic global play shops delve(d) into three vital areas:

Play in Mental Health : Exploring how play can heal and nurture our emotional well being
Play in Education: Empowering educators and students to weave play into the fabric of learning and development
Play in Grassroots Activism: Harnessing the energy, science and art of play to inspire, support and create social change

We’ve expanded our reach by launching regional hubs across Asia Pacific, Latin America, North America, and most recently, Africa! In 2023, we introduced the Global Educators Salon, a space designed to empower teachers and educators to integrate play into their classrooms, fostering creativity and engagement among students and faculty alike.

But that’s not all. We’re excited about other new initiatives, including the inaugural GPB Ambassador Program of 2024 where we are training and supporting activists to promote and advocate play and the GPB in their countries, and the GPB Play Generator, a Web-based Application that facilitates instantaneous play everyday and for everyone at the touch of a button. We’re also nurturing a promising relationship with the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC), and other partnerships with play and performance activists in education, leadership and mental health causes around the globe are growing stronger by the day.

As we celebrate this journey, we’re filled with gratitude and excitement for the future. Here’s to our four years of creativity, connection and joy so far—and to many more to come. Let’s keep playing!

Play & Mental Health

Wed, 08 May 2024 14:28:11 GMT

A reflection on Heart & Power: Utilizing Play for Your Mental Health

Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

200 people from 23 countries from Latin America, North America, Europe/UK, Asia and Africa participated in Global Play Brigade’s first Global Playshop of 2024, HEART and POWER: Utilizing Play for Our Mental Health , this past March.

As is the GPB’s DNA, we are trying a new experiment (yes, we really believe in experimenting!) with our three large global playshops this year. We have chosen specific themes that highlight important play discoveries in different aspects of life. For this past March, we chose the theme of mental health. We wanted to see if we could provide an opportunity for people from around the world to come together and explore the power of play as a tool for addressing mental health challenges.

So many of our fellow human beings are experiencing emotional difficulties. A 2023 study by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of Queensland shows that half of the world’s population will experience a mental health disorder in their lifetime . While we don’t need an academic study to tell us that we and friends and families are experiencing emotional pain, reading about the scope of this is upsetting and alarming. The Global Play Brigade, along with many other organizations, and thousands of creative teachers, therapists, activists, artists, and community organizers have made innovative breakthroughs for mental health by bringing strangers and friends together to play, improvise, co-create stories, art and poetry in ways that are providing incredible support with emotional challenges. Play can, and is, creating communities for social connection, thoughtful conversation, and nourishing support.

Heart & Power Playshops

The "HEART and POWER" playshops clearly resonated and impacted. 200 people from around the world came ready to share, wanting to learn, needing to connect, eager to be with people who were different from them. The diverse selection of workshops, led by a wonderful team of facilitators/Brigadiers, and co-created with all who came, ensured there was something for everyone:

Pause-Observe-Connect led by Mana Mukaiyachi (Japan) and Sean Kwan (China/UK)
Creating Our Mental Health led by Jessie Fields, MD (USA) and Hugh Polk, MD (USA);
Happiness Unlimited led by Ishita Sanyal (India) and Kaseina Dashe (Nigeria)
Loving Listening led by Cathy Salit (USA) and Kahlil Bagatsing (Philippines;
Embodied Empathy led by Christopher Ellinger (USA) and Jacek Kukluk (Poland);
Yoga for Emotional Wellness led by Jennifer Bullock, LPC (USA);
Discover Your Superpower led by Manuela Kelly Calzini (Italy), Kate Kennedy (USA), Alicia Laucirica (Argentina), and Nyree Robinson (Gibraltar);
Playful Imagination led by Cristina Gioveni (Argentina) and Margot Escott (USA);
Quien Canta, Sus Males Espanta led by Ruben Reyes Jirón (Nicaragua/Spain), José Carlos Barbosa (Brazil), and David Gómez (Nicaragua)

Impact on Mental Health

What was the impact of the Heart and Power sessions on people’s mental health? A sampling of comments shared by participants give us an idea. Watch this video to hear what people had to say:

Embracing Uncertainty

Mon, 29 Jan 2024 20:35:44 GMT

Highlights from Our Workshop at the Learning Planet Festival

Hello beautiful playmates!

We recently hosted an incredible workshop in collaboration with the “Yes, And… Higher Education Network (YAHE).” Themed "Embrace Uncertainty & Tap Into Collective Creativity” Embracing Uncertainty," it brought educators worldwide together for a heartfelt exploration of our unpredictable world. It took place at the Learning Planet Festival, a 4-day gathering of hundreds of organizations, programs and networks that are part of the growing Globalization at the Grassroots movement.

Held on January 26th, the workshop was a culmination of numerous meetings and meticulous preparations to bring our collective ideas to life. Educators from diverse backgrounds engaged in dialogues through enjoyable activities, expressing emotions with sounds and gestures, while we joyfully philosophized. We formed a shared language that transcended linguistic barriers as well as common categories and labels that often give us the illusion of certainty.

In the enchanting "Yes, And Story" activity, participants co-created moments filled with love and support. The workshop fostered a sense of safety, allowing everyone to express themselves freely, embrace a feeling of wholeness, and realize the spontaneous community that had blossomed during the workshop. Throughout the session, the focus was on co-creating shared thoughts and feelings related to the uncertainty we all experience. We were able to embrace uncertainty through our collective creative activity.

The workshop successfully explored the powerful mindset generated by "Yes, And" and applied improvisation, providing insights applicable in various developmental learning settings. The depth of reflection at the end affirmed the accomplishment of our objective.

Reflection comments from some participants:

"As you know, I'm not the kind of person who finds it easy to play with others, and have a strong sense of ridicule... unless I'm performing! I find some activities with colleagues extremely embarrassing, and I hate to think such images are shared on video, but as I said today, it felt like a safe environment. I particularly liked to consider the collective story, a technique I use regularly in creative writing, from a different perspective (learning to deal with uncertainty)."
"It was a fun workshop! The experience is quite unique and gives me a new perspective about so many things."
"Although I don't do any formal teaching any more, I like to be informed about what responsible and creative educators are doing to deal with global concerns. I can also learn from workshops techniques I may be able to adapt and use myself! "

GPB Educators Salon

Date: February 8 (2nd Thursday of each month)

Time: 7-8 am EST / 9-8 AST / 5:30 - 6:30 pm IST / 8-9 pm Malaysia/China / 9-10 pm JST Registration Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYod-6vqTgiE9CPvuzI5T9OIAesAypAGCWm

Yes And Higher Ed Network Monthly Gathering

Date: February 16 (3rd Friday of each month) Time: 7:00 PM EDT / 5:30 AM IST / 8 AM Malaysia/China / 9:00 AM pm JST/12:00 AM GMT

Registration Link & Zoom Meeting https://us06web.zoom.us/j/94867118879 Meeting ID: 948 6711 8879

We look forward to continuing this transformative journey that creates a vibrant community of educators committed to fostering creativity, support, and growth all over the world!

Warmly,

Hikaru Hie, Co-Leader of GPB Japan and GPB's Educators Salon

Hello from Play Back North America

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 16:21:58 GMT

Where does your practice fit on the circle map above?

Hello, GPB friends!

We invite you to come learn about a powerful form of improvisation that’s practiced in 70 countries in the world: Playback Theatre. Playback Theatre involves all seven elements in the circle map above.

Please check out PlaybackNorthAmerica.com . Join the mailing list. You can register for online workshops, classes and performances to experience the gifts of Playback Theatre, and also to learn about an off-the-stage practice called Embodied Empathy. Explore how these forms of play could enrich your life and be useful to others in your network or profession.

How might Playback Theatre and/or Embodied Empathy benefit you?

Improvisers: Add deep meaning into the fun you have with improv.
Healers: Integrate creative, embodied deep listening into your work.
Activists: Address social issues in engaging and creative ways.
Everyone: Enrich relationships, work, and daily life with creativity + connection.

We hope to meet you online sometime soon!

Warmly,
Jamie, Anne, Ed, Elaine, Johnny, Cat, and Christopher
(PNA’s organizing team, 2023)

Celebrating Japanese Food

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 16:01:42 GMT

GPB Japan hosts third playshop

GPB Japan is excited to share fantastic news! Mamiko Miyamoto has joined the leadership team. Expanding its co-leadership to a trio which includes Hikaru Lou Hie and Mana Mukaiyachi.

In the spirit of the food face festive GPB held its third play shop on July 9, 2023.

The Play Shop was slightly modified in its design to accommodate the theme of Japanese Food Culture for attendees unfamiliar with it. Surprisingly, even those residing in Japan discovered novel aspects about their own food culture!

Great News! The next GPB Japan playshop is scheduled to take place live in Tokyo on September 2nd. More details will be shared soon, until then, join our FaceBook group page for updates.

The Many Faces of GPB One Asia

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 15:49:32 GMT

This is a picture of some of the many faces of GPB ONE ASIA

The participants of GPB One Asia hail from diverse countries from the pacific, yet their shared understanding is founded on the principle of 'Yes, And', promoting an unconscious yet pervasive atmosphere of support and camaraderie among them.

The mission of the region is to: Use play across borders to build playful and thoughtful community and connection, understanding each culture and nationalities deeply and creating new possibilities for social change among Asia Pacific countries.

The official launch of the GPB One Asia community was by way of a festival called the Food Face Festival #FFF. The idea of this festival was inspired by our brigadier and founder of House of Holy Humour, Barbara Ann Michaels. After sharing her almost 300 HoliDaily creations with the GPB Play Book ensemble, Hikaru Lou, the Lead Coordinator of GPB One Asia and one of the Regional Leaders of GPB Japan, picked up on the brilliance of Barbara's creations and was immediately drawn to the idea of piloting one of the HoliDaily playful instructions for GPB One Asia. They were joined by Ishita Sanyal, leader of GPB India, who has long stressed the value of sharing foods as a way of sharing culture and crossing borders.

We are proud to share that GPB One Asia in collaboration with Jester of the Peace pulled off the Food Face Festival successfully. From July 1 to July 15, 2023 people from all over the world played, shared, connected with food in many creative ways.

Click this link to view the many creations during the festival and the facebook live sessions too.

GPB One Asia has more things planned in the future and if you are intrigued by the prospects of this region, join Global Play Brigade One Asia Pacific Facebook Group ! Or feel free to reach out to Hikaru Lou Hie directly. The next Food Face Festival is scheduled to run in November.

Watch this space!

GPB Takes Center Stage at TASP Conference

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 15:33:59 GMT

Playship: A pathway for building sustainable and equitable playful spaces.

Can a playful activity like “I am a tree” make all the difference in a keynote presentation?

Well, our Executive Director Rita Ezenwa-Okoro showed us how at The Association for the Study of Play's (TASP) 2023 Conference.

Rita's presentation captivated educators and attendees as she shared the history, explorations, and future plans of GPB using the analogy of a ship in tandem with the theme of the conference “ Playship: A pathway for building sustainable and equitable playful spaces."

It’s better experienced, so click below to watch the keynote presentation.

GPB brigadiers, Jeff Aron and Viviane Carrijo, also led a TASP workshop: "Global Play Brigade: Building a Planetary Playship Through Co-Creation, Cooperation, and Cross-Cultural Dialogue”.

Participants included academics, mental health and education professionals. We played “performance greetings” and "who is like me" as a way to introduce our conversation. The workshop also featured a short video in which Global Play Brigade leaders from India, Japan, China, Latin America, and Africa responded to the following prompts:

How do you speak with others about the possibilities play offers for social transformation?
What has it meant to you and those with whom you’re working to be creating a movement for play in your country and around the world?

The lively discussion focused on the challenges, experiences and excitement we all have had as advocates for the value of play.

5 Benefits of Laughter Yoga

Thu, 03 Aug 2023 21:25:46 GMT

Why you should try Laughter Yoga

1. Personal Life

Laughter Yoga will help to add more laughter to your life, develop a sense of humor and a smile. You will feel more self confident, have a positive outlook, hope and optimism. It changes your mood within minutes and if your mood is good, everything seems good and you are at your best everywhere.

2. Business life

Your output and performance depends on your energy level. For optimal functioning of the brain, you need 25% more oxygen than any other body organs. Laughter Yoga increases the supply of oxygen, not only to the brain but to the entire body to help you work more than normal and efficiently.

3. Health Benefits

Laughter Yoga is a powerful cardio workout; in fact 10 minutes of hearty laughter can be a real work-out. It decreases the negative effects of stress on your body which is the root cause of all illnesses. Laughing Yoga is a single exercise that deals with physical, mental and emotional stress simultaneously. It also strengthens the immune system, lowers blood pressure, controls blood sugar and keeps your heart healthy. It is a powerful antidote against depression – the number one sickness today.

4. Social Life

The quality of life and life satisfaction does not depend on how much money, power, position and success you have; rather it depends on the number of good friends with whom one has a caring and sharing relationship. This appreciation and acknowledgment helps in emotional development. Laughter Yoga is a positive energy which quickly connects you with people and helps to make friends easily.

5. Inner Spirit of Laughter

Laughter Yoga will teach you how to keep your spirits high when you face challenges in life. It promotes a positive mental attitude to help you cope with negative situations and deal with difficult persons in a much better way than a normal person.

Come and experience the contagiousness of playful laughter with Bill and Linda HAmaker every second Monday of each month at noon ET! They are Certified Laughter Yoga Master Trainers who have been spreading the joys and health benefits of intentional laughter for over 15 years! They have been loyal volunteers with the GPB since it began. The next fun session will be Monday, August 14th .

Each laughter session is always unique and memorable. Bill and Linda certify others on Zoom to lead laughter sessions and have been named Ambassadors to Laughter Yoga by Dr. Madan Kataria, the Indian physician who created laughter yoga. They have appeared on community television, NBC Boston, been on the radio, in the Boston Globe, and have been featured on the front page of many community newspapers. They run the free Wacky Wednesday Let’s Laugh Today Laughter Club that is open to anyone on Zoom.

They will show you how to bring more laughter into your life and the life of others. Laughter Yoga combines guided laughter exercises with breathing exercises to bring more oxygen to the body's cells. This oxygen boost gives enhanced vitality, energy, a feeling of real well-being, and helps to build up the immune system. It can help with anxiety, pain and depression. Any age and any level of physical ability can do these simple playful exercises. You do not even need a sense of humor! You can sit or stand. Let’s Laugh Today because seven days without laughing makes one weak!

Let's Talk About Dementia

Thu, 03 Aug 2023 21:19:10 GMT

Smash the Silence Around Dementia

Global Play Brigade is proud to support Taking It to the Streets , a global campaign led by Reimagining Dementia: A Creative Coalition for Justice designed to creatively “smash the silence” around dementia. The Coalition is led by GPB member Mary Fridley who, together with Dr. Susan Massad, created The Joy of Dementia (You Gotta Be Kidding) at the East Side Institute, where she is on faculty.

Officially launched in June, Taking It to the Streets will take place during the week of September 18-24, 2023 (World Alzheimer’s Month). The Coalition is asking its 815 plus members from 34 members (including several brigadiers) and those involved with partner organizations like GPB to host public-facing events, activities and conversations that present a playful and creative alternative to the fear, stigma and hopelessness surrounding dementia.

“When I first entered the world of dementia in 2013, I quickly realized that ‘what is to be is up to me’ so with the support of friends and community, my diagnosis has not been an ending but a new beginning,” shares Coalition member, poet and Dangle and Dot co-founder Nancy Nelson. “My life is full of ah-ha moments filled with sprinkles of fun, some laughter and joy amongst serious day-to-day learning about myself and dementia. I urge everyone to join us in taking it to the streets so that everyone affected by dementia can live better, longer and with purpose.”

Nancy is one of 55 million people living with dementia worldwide, a figure expected to triple by 2025. And yet, Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias continue to be dominated by a stigma- and shame-filled ‘tragedy narrative’ that, according to Mary, has led to this very human condition being surrounded by an isolating “cone of silence.”

As she shares, “As we’ve learned from those who helped bring AIDS, autism, disability, cancer and so much more ‘out of the closet. If this is to change, we need to win the hearts and minds of people across the world so that together we can shatter the silence. That’s why we’ll be Taking It to the Streets in every possible community. And we’re doing so with creativity and through the arts, play and more because this is how we restore humanity to people impacted by dementia and ensure that diagnosis is a starting point for joy, connection, growth and new possibilities.”

If you’d like to learn more, visit the campaign webpage, where the “Taking It to the Streets” logo, campaign information and social media toolkit are available for download.

The Coalition also invites to you become a member (it’s free and takes a minute), which you can do by clicking here.

If you’d like to contribute your play energy to this effort — or want to speak with Mary about the Joy of Dementia and/or the Coalition — contact her here .

Let’s Take It to the Street in September!

Portunholish: How All the Borders Disappeared

Thu, 03 Aug 2023 16:52:43 GMT

Playing with Portuguese, Spanish & English

In the month of June, GPB Latino América offered PORTUNHOLISH, a virtual playshop that invited participants to play with at least three languages – Portuguese, Spanish, and English. Eighteen people from Brazil, Argentina, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Miami joined. To break the ice, we asked people to look around and notice everyone in the room, then smile at one another. We did this while listening to the Brazilian song “Sorri Sorridi Smile Sonríe”, a title which repeats the word "smile" in Portuguese, Italian, English, and Spanish.

After that, we played a game called “Look at Me and Tell Me.” In this game, one person tells a story using a single facial expression. It can be anything – eyebrows held high, mouth turned down, teeth barred – anything. They do not share the story behind the facial expression. Rather, other participants interpret the facial expression by telling a story in their own language. If you can imagine, this inspired a symphony of voices in three languages to fill the Zoom room.

Later, we shared childhood memories in small breakout groups. Each person told their memory in their own language, using large gestures. The instructions were to move their bodies as much as they could, trying to tell their story both verbally and physically. The other members of the group would repeat the storyteller's gestures as if they were a mirror of that person. Once everyone had shared memory, the whole group created choreography combining all the gestural stories and performed the choreography in the main room.

At the end, participants shared that they had enjoyed themselves. One participant said that she had not imagined before that she could play both with people that she did not know and with people she knew on Zoom. She was surprised that she could play with people close in her own geographic region and with people from afar. One participant shared that he felt as if he had gone back to school and was having a good time with classmates. Another said that what she had liked the most was that all the borders had disappeared, that she felt as if there were no physical and no language borders.

The Making of the GPB Play Generator

Thu, 03 Aug 2023 16:37:31 GMT

The Play Book Ensemble's Creative Process

Hey Reader of the Play Book Ensemble story!

What happens when you connect enthusiastic Brigadiers across borders and time zones on a foggy, shiny, rainy or freakin’ hot day for weekly meetings to enthusiastically brainstorm on what a GPB Play Book could be? Not surprisingly, our process is filled with playful and creative souls who generate tons of ideas. Should we create Play-Superheroes and spread them around the world via comics and Brigadiers dressed in costume? Or perhaps an app with Daily E(motional) Dance moves incorporated into a HoliDaily holiday? Or, maybe we create a Play Calendar incorporating world holidays? Could we break down walls in physical spaces such as schools to bring play into the classroom? Should create something new, or rather bring GPB to existing platforms, systems, or influencers spaces?

So many possibilities – it's almost overwhelming! Thankfully, we had Executive Director Rita Ezenwa-Okoro to focus this creative bunch. Rita focused and steered us to move one or two of our ideas to implementation and launch! This is how we narrowed down the process to focus on building The Play Generator .

The Play Generator will eventually be accessed via our GPB website. It will be a platform that allows people to search for playful activities and games based on their needs. After someone comes to the site and inputs a basic set of criteria, the Play Generator will show a play activity that meets that person’s criteria. For example, a teacher who wants to bring play into their middle school classroom.

As a playful social change movement we have tons of play activities to spread and share around the world. We’re excited to put these rich resources into a web application. We’ve put out a call on Idealist.org for volunteers to come on board as volunteer Play Generator Programmers; we are also going to look for a volunteer Project Manager. Together with our team, they will lead the development, coding and launch of our Play Generator.

Imagine having a tool where anyone anywhere in the world could input simple parameters and receive a game tailored to that person’s needs We will also put in a feedback loop so that we can find out how it went!

Do you want to put some energy in making this happen for real? We call on our Brigadiers to keep on nourishing the resources by cataloguing your games. Let's play it forward.

And lastly, we use every opportunity together to play! Here we are playing a virtual Hide and Seek game. (Hikaru is hidden, see if you can find her!)

Fostering Change Makers

Thu, 03 Aug 2023 15:47:52 GMT

Playshops aren't polished performance so much as they are messy and intriguing invitations to play

In mid-2022, Global Play Brigade (GPB) began experimenting with quarterly Global Playshops. These conference-like events provide a space in which hundreds from different countries gather to play. Someone in China might play with others in Israel, Canada, South Africa, and Argentina. For many of us, that's a very new experience! Playing together across borders gives people who might not otherwise interact the space to meet, explore, and create new possibilities for the world.

But how does one actually do this? If improving cross-cultural relationships were easy, we would all be doing it. Our volunteer facilitators are the creators of these transformative environments. When we do new things, we need support. This led to the development of the Facilitator Jams. These Jams happen quarterly in preparation for the next Global Playshop. They are a space in which both experienced and new facilitators come together to partner, train, and create. Some leave the Jams with a team, a brand-new playshop design, and a dedicated support coach. These are the facilitators who go on to develop and practice their workshops at the Global Playshop event.

"I learned about my fellow participants' multicultural backgrounds. I relearned that this group is exactly what I was looking for. I was positively surprised by the energy I picked up during the session coming to it rather exhausted.

A BIG THANK YOU to all you lovely people from 17 different countries."

Manuela (Italy), Facilitator Jam attendee

We have been fortunate to work with talented and strong facilitators who already have a plethora of skills. Facilitator Jams and coaching are intended to support them to bring those skills to the global stage. The Workshop Development team, a team of volunteers made up of Susan Hillyard, Jenn Bullock, Rick Horner, and Charly Ford, works to design the Jams, Global Playshops, and provide continued support to GPB facilitators. Our efforts focus on gathering all these skilled people from different places and helping them to focus together on one idea that will be absorbable by the global community.

The last Global Playshop in June 2023 was the first time we experimented with assigning coaches to teams that came out of the Jam. Playshops aren’t polished performances so much as they are messy and intriguing invitations to play. The goal is to get people engaged and collaborative. It is with this focus that we can coach towards gaining insight and practicing different exercises and behaviors in the context of the playshop. Individual facilitator assessment and feedback are not evaluated - the key is team coaching related to improving overall team effectiveness. Reaching out and staying connected to make sure the team is on track and not stalled. Providing the resources of listening with a caring heart and suggestions when needed or required. All done in a fun, synergetic and empathetic way that helps connect humans in different geographical spaces and situations.

Interested in facilitating? Join us at the next Global Playshop on November 3rd & 4th to see how we do it at GPB.

A New York Tour to Remember

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 20:00:18 GMT

Executive Director Rita Ezenwa-Okoro's NYC Trip

On January 7, 2023, six months after Rita Ezenwa-Okoro’s emergence as the first Executive Director of the Global Play Brigade (GPB), she set out on a New York tour. A 5-day Congress, three grand receptions, a day at the beach, and a visit to the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) were what characterized this unique New York tour. Here’s how it went down.

She was welcomed to the city by her dear friend and fellow brigadier Aurelie Harp who she had never met in person before, however, through the GPB, they had grown a strong bond spanning over two years of engagement. Watch the video of their first meeting .

Rita is a three-time global fellow of the International Society of the Performing Arts and so had to attend its 2023 Congress which began on Tuesday, January 9, 2023. Most recently, Rita made history as the first Nigerian elected and appointed to the prestigious board of directors of this almost 75 years old institution. Being a part of this Congress of over 500 attendees worldwide, presented a great opportunity to network and spread the Global Play Brigade’s message with everyone. Rita also got the opportunity to be a part of ISPA’s Podcast Live Recording, where she read excerpts from her book entitled Doing. Being. Becoming for the love of the creative arts and shared her work at the Street Project Foundation in Nigeria and Global Play Brigade.

After the Congress, Rita attended a special GPB reception organized in collaboration with the East Side Institute, New York which she is an alumnus and associate of, on Friday, January 13, 2023. She was moved by the presence of many who she had not seen since the pandemic and those she met in person for the first time after over two years of meeting online. After being introduced by Carrie Lobman- Faculty of ESI, and Cathy R. Salit - Founder of Global Play Brigade, Rita gave a moving speech that ended with a call for everyone to spread the word of GPB and this followed with the distribution of GPB ‘Play it Forward’ buttons. The event then evolved into a book signing ceremony.

Afterward, seasoned musicians, tech, and non-profit organization leaders convened at Cathy’s home in Setauket, Stony Brook, New York, to welcome Rita Ezenwa-Okoro. After a bit of small talk and small chops, Cathy got everyone in the room to play a game of “Yes but & Yes and” after which Rita was introduced to share her vision for the Global Play Brigade which left many intrigued.

After back-to-back receptions, it only made sense for Rita to spend some time at the beach house of Lois Holzman-Co-founder of the East Side Institute, and Dan Friedman- Faculty of the East Side Institute, in Montauk, New York. This gave her time to refresh by the ocean side, taking evening walks and catching a beautiful glimpse of the sunset.

On her return back to New York City, Rich Sokolow, who is a long-time member of the performance activism community, hosted a reception at his home. It was a unique crowd of friends from his children’s school, his colleagues at work, representatives of the All Stars Project and representatives of the ESI and GPB communities.

After month s of nurturing a working relationship with the Under Secretary of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) following Rita Ezenwa-Okoro’s Street Project Foundation United Nations and BMW Group’s Intercultural Innovation Award, a meeting with the leadership of the UNAOC was secured. The meeting, attended by Cathy R. Salit and Rita Ezenwa-Okoro, ended with a request by the Under Secretary, Mr. Miguel Moratinos to develop a concept note for a BIG project that will be implemented by both the UNAOC and the Global Play Brigade.

What an exciting way to round up a very significant and memorable trip designed for the growth of the Global Play Brigade.

The becoming journey of GPB One Asia

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 14:21:58 GMT

There is something coming into existence… Global Play Briga de One Asia!

One Asia Global Play Brigade emerged out of Global Play Brigade activities happening in India and China. A question emerged: What would it be like for the people across Asia to come together to create this movement?

When Brigadier Cheng Zeng , based in Beijing, China learned more about what GPB India was creating, he felt it was an opportunity for everyone to learn about the lives and cultures of people throughout Asia. Although there are things in common, people wondered together, how could they build with their differences?

The first GPB One Asia meeting was held on June 14, 2022, the initial participants were from China , Taiwan , India , Singapore , and Japan . People made note that this was an unusual grouping. It is not often that people from mainland China, Taiwan, and India, for example, have the chance to talk and play together.

The meeting was an initial exploration of what “One Asia” means. These talented Brigadiers became enthusiastic about a “One Asia” vision. What emerged from the initial meeting was a GPB Playshop we called Playing Our World: GPB One Asia in August, 2022. Sixty people attended, many from China and India. Ishita Sanyal , who leads GPB India, and Cheng were the co-facilitators. Ishita facilitated the large group activities; we greeted each other in Gibberish and played with emotions and movement.

Cheng and Ishita led improv scenes about some of the issues going on for people in China and India. Some of the scenes were about the constant Covid testing, loss of electricity, endless lockdowns, and fears about climate change. After this event there was a lot of excitement that something new was happening… GPB One Asia was coming into existence!

Since that initial Playshop in August, GPB One Asia has continued to grow. 2023 began with Open the Door, an international talent show co-sponsored by GPB India and Turning Point , a m ental health center led by Ishita in Kolkata, India. Many GPB friends from China were there to play. In February, Japan GPB launched and will offer their first GPB Japan Playshop in May. The latest development is beginnings of a GPB Malaysia.

As our friends in GPB Japan say, “Enjoy the Differences - A Creative Experiment” is alive and well as we play across borders with GPB One Asia!

GPB Meets with the United Nations

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 14:21:56 GMT

Rita & Cathy's Meeting with United Nations Alliance of Civilizations

In February of this year, Executive Director Rita Ezenwa-Okoro and Global Play Brigade Founder Cathy Salit met with H is Excellency Mr. Miguel Ángel Moratinos, the High Representative for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) in New York City. The UNAOC’s motto is:

"Many Cultures, One Humanity," UNAOC embraces and promotes cultural diversity, religious pluralism and mutual respect. Their website states: As our world faces a global human crisis, as the pandemic exposed deep-seated inequalities, we are reminded every day of our common fragility and our interconnected fate. There is no alternative to standing together in unity and solidarity in inclusive societies.

The meeting came about after The Global Play Brigade submitted a proposal for collaboration with the United Nations organization. In the proposal, we shared:

The Global Play Brigade (GPB) is a part of an international movement that practices and promotes play and performance as a fresh and powerful approach to social change, civic and community engagement, and conflict resolution. We use the transformative power of play to foster human development, hope, and new possibilities for our world.

We offered a number of different ideas for how we might be able to collaborate together, including a co-sponsored experiential global conference for NGOs and CSOs to learn first hand about the bridge building possibilities through play, along with several other ideas.

The conversation with Mr. Miguel Moratinos and his colleagues was fun, and fascinating. They asked many questions about what we meant by play, what our playshops looked like, who our thousands of participants were, our history and how we trained facilitators, etc. Initially the ideas that were shared for possible collaboration were small; maybe GPB would present at one of their upcoming conferences. Or, perhaps we would train some of their NGO leaders.

But then Mr. Moratinos changed the course of the conversation. He said (and we paraphrase here): We need to do something BIG together. The world is in a monumental crisis, and we have to go forth with radical, innovative and big ideas to make a difference. That’s what I want from a GPB and UNAOC collaboration. So let’s come up with a concept paper and some revolutionary plans that can really help us create peace, collaboration amongst nations and peoples. If play can help us do that – let’s go for it.

Of course Rita and Cathy said, GREAT, that’s what we’ll do. And so, back at “headquarters” we convened a marvelous group of Brigadiers from around the world, dubbed the “Going Big Ensemble”, and we have been hard at work designing a wide-ranging, creative and BIG collaboration between our two organizations. More to come soon!!!

GBP Japan Launch

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 14:21:55 GMT

Enjoy the differences – a creative experiment!

by Hikaru Hie, co-leader of GPB Japan

Mana Mukaiyachi and I were able to launch Global Play Brigade Japan on February 4 ^th this year! We've never met in person, but we found a lot in common at our very first meeting. Each of us is trying to make the world a better place by using art, play, and performance, and after that first deep dialogue, we came up with the theme of our very first GPB Japan event:

Enjoy the differences – a creative experiment!

It's okay not to be standard - appreciate who you are. Appreciate who others are.

The inspiration for this theme is the overwhelming pressure in Japan to conform. You may have heard the word “同調圧力” which means " peer pressure," or, "harmonizing pressure". We may not want to be and act the same, but we feel a pervasive pressure to behave the same as others. In fact, the word “違い" (chigai), which means "difference,” is so similar to the word “間違い" （machigai), which means "mistake," that they are sometimes used interchangeably. This invisible pressure hurts us so we want to spread the message to appreciate differences around Japan through playful activities and dialogue.

We had several GPB founders from all over the world as guests at this first GPB Japan meeting, reminding us that we are connected to a global network. Mana warmed us up with some games, I introduced the principles of improv, and we played with those ideas. We ended with a group dialogue to visualize how incorporating play into our professions would better the world.

You can imagine that the 90 minutes just flew! We all left energized and empowered after connecting with people from Japan and outside of Japan. Our next gathering will be on May 6 ^th Saturday at 10:30 a.m. – noon. If you are interested, please register yourself here .

GBP Nigeria Hikes to "stop the cut”

Mon, 27 Mar 2023 19:42:01 GMT

GPB Nigeria collaborates with Wave Foundation in 16 Days of Activism

by Prudence Omale, co-leader of GPB Nigeria

Have you ever played while elevated 2,500 feet from the ground?

Well, that’s exactly what the Global Play Brigade Nigeria was up to last December.

In a bid to honor the Global 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence – with the theme “UNiTE! Activism to end violence against women and girls” – GPB Nigeria collaborated to organize a hike to Mbape Mountain in Nigeria’s capital city of Abuja on the 17 ^th of December, 2022.

Utilizing play for bridge-building and positive social change is at the very heart of the brigadiers in Nigeria who partnered with Wave Foundation to commemorate the 16 days of activism under the sub-theme "stop the cut." The purpose of the hike was to raise awareness about female genital mutilation (FGM). Even though FGM is common practice in many Nigerian cultures, we believe it is exploitative of women and needs to end. Not only does it constitute a human rights abuse, it can also lead to irreversible effects on the female genitalia with some victims paying the ultimate price of death.

The audience was divided into ten groups by Global Play Brigade Nigeria, and each group was given a word to play with. They were given a word to express how they felt about the hike or one that had something to do with ending female genital mutilation. We had two of our Brigadiers perform spoken word pieces and by the end of the event, all attendees pledged their commitment to support the cause of putting a stop to FGM in Nigeria. #endFGM

Open the Door for "WE"

Mon, 27 Mar 2023 19:41:48 GMT

India's 25th Annual Talent Show for Specially-Abled Youth

by Ishita Sanyal, founder of Turning Point India & leader of Global Play Brigade India

Ashwini is a young person living in a remote area of West Bengal, India. He has been a member of Turning Point India – an organization that fights mental health stigma – for several few years now. Very aware of his moderate intellectual disability, low vision, and speech difficulties, Ashwini hardly spoke or participated in activities at first. I would hardly see him getting pleasure and enjoying life. He was not accustomed to the Zoom interface so when we started virtual Global Play Brigade sessions in India, A shwini wou ld silently join with his fathe r or sister. With this in mind, I was quite surprised to witness his significant change and development through the process of Open the Door 2023.

T urning Point , in coll aboration with Global Play Brigade , presented the v irtual Open The Door online program on 7 ^th January, 2023 to commemorate its 25 ^th year of journey in the field of mental health. Open the Door is a global event that showcases the talents of specially-abled people. This often ignored population gets an opportunity to connect with people around the world; to play together, to have fun, to build, and to re-initiate development together in a secure and enthusiastic environment. This is creating the magic - the magic of performance & connection with others.

The annual talent show features music, poetry, drama, and dance performances punctuated by interactive games for the whole audience to join. In one such game, we created a new world music by imitating and pretending to play with traditional instruments of India. It was hard to believe that participants were not actually playing the instruments – just singing the sounds and moving their bodies as if they were playing. Debarshi and his father performed so well that it appeared as if they played the music themselves, their body language showing the happiness, enthusiasm, and satisfaction of a musician. Binita, the mother of a new Turning Point member, was so overwhelmed with joy by the Open the Door performance and games activities during Open the Door that she invited all the participants to come to India and offered to host!

In preparation for Open the Door, Ashwini appeared regularly for rehearsals. On the day of the virtual event, though he once again sat beside his sister during the show, I was surprised to see him smiling and willing to participate. His burst of energy and enjoyment was clearly connected to joining with people from all corners of the world. GPB creates an environment where “WE” feeling predominates, people get an environment to express themselves creatively, and make something meaningful with their pain and challenges. They become open and flexible to learn, curious about people all over the world, and gain the patience and acceptance for every human being. It softens the borders, man-made divisions, and discriminations. As "Listen [and play] with your heart, " one facilitator instructed.

Cultura con Sabrosura

Mon, 27 Mar 2023 19:41:05 GMT

A cultural exchange through play

by Rubén Reyes, co-leader of GPB Latinamérica

This past November, twenty-seven playful people from El Salvador, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, the US, India, and Nicaragua gathered on Zoom to blend the unique flavors of Latin American culture. Global Play Brigade Latinoamérica 's playshop, Cultura con Sabrosura – "culture with flavor" – was hosted by Edith (El Salvador) and Jorge (Mexico) with Spanish-English interpretation by Emily. Together, we sang, danced, and celebrated our cultural ties and differences.

I'm Rubén (Nicaragua) and I warmed up the group as if we were boxers training for a fight – with stretching and jabbing exercises. Then, Gustavo, a Cuban psychologist living in Nicaragua, took us to his homeland by singing Guantanamera , a classic patriotic Cuban song. “I am a sincere man from where the palm tree grows and, before I die, I would like to share poetry coming out of my heart,” the lyrics begin. Participants joined in the chorus: “Guantanamera, guajira guantanamera." ("The peasant woman from Guantánamo.").

Jorge and Roque (Mexico) shared the tradition of Calaverita literarias ("literary skulls"), light-hearted poems written for the Day of the Dead. These rhymes play with the character of Death and the truth that dying is every person's destiny. Participants wrote their own Calaverita literarias :

"Death reaches everyone, that we know, it kills celebrities and also the people unknown.”

“The brigadiers were dancing to Who's zoomin' Who, the Death joined the dance and its bones went boom.”

Vanessa then shared the Argentinian passions of tango and fútbol . They listened to tango music and explored the deep feelings it stirred. Some felt the music in their feet and had the sensation of dancing together as a group. Others reminisced of their happy childhood.

David (Nicaragua) spoke about the history of masks in rituals and celebrations all over Latinoamérica and guided the group to make their own masks using paper and other materials they had available at home. Vivi and Zé (Brazil) then taught the Zamba step-by-step, including the important role that Carnival plays in raising awareness around social issues. We then collectively donned our masks and danced to Carnival Zamba music.

We danced away our farewell with reggaeton song Pa´la cultura , a reggaeton that was sung and recorded by several Latinoamerican singers. At the end we all felt that we had visited several Latinoamerican cultures, and we had learned a bit of each of the ones that were present. Through this playshop we were able “to break down national borders, language barriers, and religious differences and strengthen our cultural identity, common heritage, shared values, and ethics. Building a circle of trust through play, it allows us to celebrate our cultural experiences without judgment, bias, or prejudice to one another”. Here we are quoting Rita from her speech saluting Cultura con Sabrosura.

Welcome Rita Ezenwa-Okoro as GPB's Executive Director

Thu, 11 Aug 2022 13:55:01 GMT

We've got big news!

Rita Ezenwa-Okoro has taken on the mantle of Executive Director for the Global Play Brigade.

Rita is a creative culturist, performance activist, and communications expert. She is a co-founder of the Global Play Brigade and she is the founder and lead visionary of Street Project Foundation Nigeria where she uses improv, play, and performance as tools for youth development, social mobilization, and cross-cul tural dialogue. Rita is a recipient of President Barack Obama's Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders , the Lagos State Government Youth Development Award, the Extraordinary Women's Award in France, and the Next Generation Leaders Award .

We are growing in new and exciting ways, and Rita's leadership is right on time! Below is Rita's speech from our 2-Year Anniversary celebration at the end of July 2022.

Play it Forward!
Cathy Salit
Chief Organizer, Global Play Brigade

RITA'S SPEECH

I am truly honored by the opportunity to serve as Executive Director of this ballsy movement that dares to explore new ways humans can develop, connect, co-create, and grow across borders through play. Our world is fractured. Do we accept the cracks between our countries, tribe, ethnicities, and races as a design of imperfection? Or, do we see it as an opportunity to infiltrate old systems and strategically create awareness about new methods for challenging the status quo?

Who is responsible for the world as it is? Humans! Who is responsible for fixing the world. Humans. At the core of human development are relationships. A dear friend once told me that people are afraid of what they do not understand. In a world where the concept of play is misconstrued as childish, Global Play Brigade allows us to share creative nuggets through Playshops on how we can soften borders and barriers between us.

Cathy Salit, our Chief Organizer, once told me that what something "is" is not knowable when you're in the middle of it. So, we haven't tried to know what Global Play Brigade is. From it's inception – of which, I'm a proud founding member – we've been busy co-creating and discovering what Global Play Brigade is becoming. And now, we are two years old and I believe that we are beginning to see the role this movement can play in the world. From our social impact work in Brazil through the provision of support from Brigadiers in Chinaduring the COVID pandemic to the emotional support provided by Brigadiers across the world to young Nigerians on the front line of the EndSARS protests against police brutality. Or, our current partnership with Purpose Alliance to provide emotional support to Ukrainian refugees. The possibilities for social impact are enormous. Global Play Brigade evolved in response to a world crisis and we are still here. More than ever, we need each other.

Because you are, we are. Because you volunteer, GPB continues to exist. Let's spread out wings and make the world whole. My charge to everyone is to get people across borders to fall in love with the Global Play Brigade. This way, we allow people to explore how we can use play beyond ideologies, topple old constructs, and create new ways of doing, being, and becoming in a world that is a work-in-progress. Together, we are creating a revolutionary activity that is unknowable yet impact-driven.

Global Play Brigade, play it forward and let's change our world.

Yours,
Rita Ezenwa-Okoro
Executive Director, Global Play Brigade

La Masculinidad y Los Roles de Género en La Jugada

Thu, 09 Sep 2021 13:50:56 GMT

El hombre que no juega ha perdido para siempre al niño
que vivía en él y al que echará terriblemente de menos.

Pablo Neruda

Leer en inglés.

"¿Quién, como yo, ha acosado alguna vez a una mujer?” Cuando me enteré de la serie de talleres que el contingente latinoamericano de la Global Play Brigade ( GPB Latino América ) estaba planeando, apenas pude contener mi emoción con la idea de que el poder del juego pudiera utilizarse para mirar, desafiar y actuar más allá de la masculinidad.

Jorge Burciaga-Montoya y Miguel Cortés (Juárez, México) facilitan este taller de disrupción del género junto con José “Ze” Carlos Lopes (São Paulo, Brasil) y Rubén Reyes Jirón (Managua, Nicaragua). Estos cuatro activistas del performance, educadores, terapeutas y cofundadores de la Global Play Brigade dirigen una serie de talleres en línea llamados Juegos de Hombres . Estas sesiones utilizan juegos grupales para ayudar a los hombres a explorar el significado de la masculinidad y reexaminar los roles de género y los supuestos culturales.

¿Puedes jugar con ser un matón?

Uno de los juegos a los que jugaron fue el “burling” al revés, que es una mezcla en español e inglés de “bullying” y “burla”. A los participantes se les indicó que se hicieran cumplidos del tipo: “Qué guapo estás hoy”, mientras utilizaban un tono agresivo o amenazante. Por ejemplo, “¡Estás haciendo un gran trabajo dirigiendo este taller! Cómo te atreves a hacer un trabajo tan bueno”. Consiguieron actuar de forma estereotipada, masculina y machista, al tiempo que decían cosas que normalmente no tienen la libertad de decir como hombres: hacerse cumplidos, ser cariñosos y expresar su agradecimiento. Uno de los participantes dijo que nunca había considerado la posibilidad o la importancia de que alguien dijera cosas positivas sobre él antes de participar en este juego.

¿Quién como yo?

Utilizando sus manos para bloquear o desbloquear la cámara de Zoom, los hombres de los primeros talleres – participantes de nueve países de América Latina – compartieron sus experiencias diferentes o similares:

¿Quién, como yo, ha acosado alguna vez a una mujer?
¿Quién, como yo, ha pensado que por tener cierta cantidad de dinero era más poderoso que los demás?
¿Quién, como yo, ha sufrido acoso por haber decidido no pelear en la calle?
¿Quién ha protegido a una mujer?
¿Quién ha respetado a una mujer?
¿Quién ha visto a una mujer acosada y no ha sabido qué hacer?
Cubre tu cámara si, como yo, has experimentado lo mismo.

Los participantes -hombres jóvenes, de mediana edad y mayores, desde México hasta Argentina- se sintieron cómodos compartiendo sus historias, así como la manera en que han sido socializados para ser hombres. En el espacio de reflexión creado por los juegos, uno de los participantes dijo: “Tenemos que cuestionar eso -lo que la sociedad nos dice que seamos- porque no queremos actuar de esa manera”.

Al diseñar un espacio para jugar con estos temas, habían creado el entorno en el que podía darse una conversación y una exploración abiertas y no defensivas. Al jugar juntos, pudieron hablar del daño personal que la cultura, las suposiciones y los roles de género les han causado, así como del daño que tiene sobre las mujeres y los niños. Juntos jugaron y hablaron sobre cómo se ven, se comportan y adoptan esos rasgos culturales. Durante una sesión concreta, uno de los participantes más jóvenes se quedó en la llamada de Zoom mientras viajaba al trabajo. Incluso se quedó después de llegar porque no quería perderse nada. Muchos de los hombres compartieron que se sentían felices, sorprendidos y aliviados de compartir esos sentimientos y escuchar los problemas con los que se enfrentan otros hombres. La gente no quería que la sesión terminara y se quedó después de la hora de cierre prevista.

Me anima compartir que estas sesiones tan vitales van a continuar. Están previstos varios talleres más, incluidos algunos en los que se invita a las mujeres a participar. Estos talleres se llaman Juegos Genero-sos . “Genero-sos” es un delicioso juego de palabras que mezcla “género” y “generosidad”, un lenguaje que nos ayuda a jugar y explorar el concepto de identidad. En un mundo en el que cada vez estamos más divididos y polarizados, el juego nos ofrece una forma de explorar y colaborar con las demás personas, en lugar de anularlas o avergonzarlas. Necesitamos el juego para cuando nos equivocamos, tenemos diferencias de opinión y experimentamos nuestras múltiples diferencias humanas (lo bueno, lo malo, lo feo y todas las zonas grises entre medio). El juego es una herramienta vital y creativa que nos ayuda a crecer y aprender juntos, entre, alrededor y fuera de nuestras identidades socialmente construidas.

El gran poeta chileno Pablo Neruda nos recuerda la importancia de no olvidarnos de jugar. José, Miguel, Rubén, Jorge y todo el equipo de Global Play Brigade Latino América están construyendo espacios para que podamos jugar. Están liderando el camino en apoyo a los hombres (y mujeres) para que rompan las reglas y los roles sociales al crear juntos actuaciones nuevas, humanas y amorosas.

Playing With Masculinity and Gender Roles

Thu, 09 Sep 2021 13:44:27 GMT

The man who does not play has lost forever the child

who lived in him and who he will miss terribly.

Pablo Neruda

Read in Spanish.

“Who, like me, has ever harassed a woman?” When I first heard about the workshop series that the Global Play Brigade ’s Latin American contingent ( GPB Latino América ) was planning, I could barely contain my excitement about using the power of play to look at, challenge, and perform beyond masculinity.

Jorge Burciaga-Montoya and Miguel Cortés (Juárez, Mexico) facilitate this gender-disrupting workshop along with José “Ze” Carlos Lopes (São Paulo, Brazil) and Rubén Reyes Jirón (Managua, Nicaragua). These four performance activists, educators, therapists and co-founders of the Global Play Brigade lead an online workshop series called Juegos de Hombres (“Men’s Games”). These sessions use playful games to support men to explore the meaning of masculinity and to re-examine gender roles and cultural assumptions.

¿Puedes jugar con ser un matón? (Can you play with being a bully?)

One of the games they play is “burling,” which is a Spanish/English melding of “bullying” and “taunting.” Participants are directed to give each other compliments like, “You look so handsome today,” while using a mean or threatening tone. For example, “You are doing such a great job leading this workshop! How dare you do such a good job!” They get to perform in a stereotypical masculine and macho way while saying things they don’t usually have the freedom to say as men – giving one another compliments, being warm, and expressing appreciation. One of the participants said that he had never considered the possibility or importance of someone saying positive things about him before playing this game.

¿Quién como yo? (Who, like me?)

Using their hands to block or unblock the camera on Zoom, the men in the first workshops – participants from nine countries across Latin America – shared their different or similar experiences:

Who, like me, has ever harassed a woman?
Who, like me, has thought that because you have a certain amount of money, you were more powerful than others?
Who, like me, has been bullied because you decided not to fight on the street?
Who has protected a woman?
Who has respected a woman?
Who has seen women harassed and not known what to do?
Cover your camera if you, like me, have experienced the same.

The intergenerational participants felt comfortable to share their history and how they too have been socialized to be men. As the games created room for reflection, one of the participants said, “We need to question that – what society is telling us to be – because we don’t want to do that.”

In designing a space for playing with these issues, they had created the environment where non-defensive, open conversation and exploration could happen. By playing together, they were able to talk about the personal harm that culture, assumptions, and roles have caused them, as well as the damage it has on women and children. Together, they played with and talked about how they view, behave, and embrace those cultural traits. Many of the men shared that they were happy, surprised, and relieved to share those feelings and listen to the issues that other men deal with. People didn’t want the session to end and hung around after the scheduled closing time. During a particular session, one of the younger participants stayed on the Zoom call as he was traveling to work. He even stayed on after he arrived because he didn’t want to miss anything.

I am heartened to share that these vital sessions are not ending. Several more workshops are planned, including some where women are invited to join. These workshops are called Juegos Genero-sos (“Gender/Generosity Games”). “Genero-sos” is a delightful play-on-words that mixes “gender” and “generosity” – language that helps us play with and explore the concept of identity. In a world where we are being divided and polarized in more and more ways, play gives us a way to explore and work with – rather than cancel or shame – each other. We need play for when we make mistakes, have differences of opinion, and experience our myriad of human differences (the good, the bad, the ugly, and all of the gray areas in between). Play is a vital and creative tool that helps us to grow and learn together, in between, around, and outside of our socially constructed identities.

The great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda reminds us of the importance of not forgetting to play. José, Miguel, Rubén, Jorge, and the entire Global Play Brigade Latino América team are building spaces so that we can play. They are leading the way by supporting men (and women) to break societal rules and roles by creating new, humane, and loving performances together.

Fighting the Isolation of Aging Through Play

Fri, 13 Aug 2021 15:19:42 GMT

The Global Play Brigade Story Chain Project Connects Seniors with Brigadiers Around the World

Since the earliest days of the pandemic, when we were creating what is now the Global Play Brigade (GPB), we knew that we wanted to bring the transformational power of play into nursing homes and assisted living facilities around the world to address the isolation of our elders.

My father lived at The Actors Fund Home in Englewood, New Jersey for five years until he passed away on August 22nd, 2020. During my visits, I fell in love with the facility and many of its residents. It’s a unique Assisted Living and Nursing Home, with a proud history of caring for a wide variety of professionals in performing arts and entertainment, including designers, writers, sound technicians, musicians, dancers, administrators, directors, film editors, stagehands, actors, and more.

After months of crisis inside U.S. nursing homes — where COVID was rampant — I reached out to the activities staff and asked how the Global Play Brigade could support them with programming. I had already shared with them our Ode to Frontline Workers video , which they were showing on screens around the facility.

Jon deAngelis, a dedicated and talented drama ther apist a nd Activities Coordinator at The Actors Home, and I put our heads together. Inspired by the power of storytelling, we created a pilot project we call the Global Play Brigade Story Chain ; an innovative way to lend support and provide a fun activity that connects resident story writers/storytellers with Global Play Brigadiers around the world.

We are creating a collective, ongoing, improvisational “story chain” by having residents write (dictate) the first sentence, paragraph, or paragraphs of a story. Then, The Actors Home’s recreation staff and Jon DeAngelis, with support from improviser and staff member Angela Dohrmann, email the stories to me, the Brigadier responsible for the pilot project.

I then email the story to a Brigadier somewhere in the world, and they add a paragraph or more, and email it back to both me and Jon. The resident storyteller/originator continues the story, and it comes back to us, and so on, and so on.

We hope that this pilot project will become a model that we can roll out to other nursing and assisted living facilities around the world in many languages. For now, all stories are in English and all the Brigadiers, irrespective of their first language, are writing in English.

We began with three resident story writers: Claire, Martha, and Pam. Of those three stories begun in June, two are completed, and new story writers have come on board since. The stories have traveled from the USA to the UK, Nigeria, Greece, Mexico, Turkey, New Zealand and Australia. We have eight active stories representing nine residents. Our latest story was written by a mother/daughter at The Actors Home and is being sent to a mother/daughter in India! We have 16 active Brigadier story writers.

“I am creating a story with someone who is far away and I do not feel any sense of age and aging in our stories. I am surprised by a sense of wonder and great freshness!” - Brigadier/Storyteller Claudita Fanni Fertino (Italy)

“I sat down with Claire this morning, and before we even looked at the story, she seemed resolved to find an ending…. I told her endings are often found at the story’s beginning so she agreed I should read her the story from the very beginning. When we came to Vic’s latest contribution, Claire’s face lit up and she began excitedly dictating to me her latest contribution.” - Angela Dohrmann, Activities Staff, The Actors Fund Home

“The simple act of creating a narrative with someone living over 3000 miles away is both oddly touching and exciting. When you’ve never met the person that you’re improvising with, and yet you still feel such a strong connection and sense of fun, it’s like magic. I always look forward to seeing what direction Claire has taken our tale." - Brigadier/Improviser Vic Hogg (United Kingdom)

“I want to commend the entire Brigade for their outstanding commitment and effort in making these activities a unique, connecting experience for the participants. I am very impressed, excited and humbled by the interest and talent going into our residents’ wellbeing and happiness.” - Jon DeAngelis, Activities Coordinator, The Actors Fund Home

“Meeting someone through creative play creates an instant connection. Through a shared story we get a glimpse of how someone imagines and plays and they get a glimpse of us. It is a warm feeling and I enjoy it immensely. There is something so sweet in Pam’s words. She wants people to have a nice happy time. I wonder if there is some memory mixed in here. Whatever story she wants, we shall find it together.” - Brigadier/Improviser Patti Stiles (Australia)

Pam's Story

(Brigadiers’ additions in italics)

There was a little boy and girl. They were liking each other an awful lot, which was good.

Every Saturday, after they finished their chores, they would meet at their secret place by the river. Sometimes they would swim. Sometimes they would watch the clouds. Whatever they did they made each other laugh. They enjoyed each other’s company.

The boy and girl went back to their friends who were glad to see them. It was evening time. The boy and the girl and their friends went to walk in the sand. They had to come back for dinner at the girl’s house. Her mother was a good cook.

The boy and girl hugged all of their friends goodbye and went back home for dinner. Pattie, the girl’s mother, had prepared a Sunday roast that smelled like heaven and a sweet cherry pie for dessert. They ate, talked and laughed a lot, yet Pattie looked sad and wouldn’t tell them why. So, the girl and boy decided to take her to their secret place by the river and cheer her up.

They arrived at the secret place and had a swim. The swim was so good, they went back to find their brothers. The swim cheered Pattie up.

The brothers were at the house waiting for them. They had warmed the cherry pie and made fresh coffee. It was all on the front porch waiting for the boy, girl and Pattie to arrive. Everyone complimented Pattie’s cherry pie, she really was a good cook. Her pies had won many ribbons for being the best at the Country Fair. The girl went in the house and put a record on. “Remember this song?” she asked with a smile “Shall we dance?”

As we await Pam’s next installment, it is hitting me that the Global Play Brigade Story Chain — and all that we do — asks the question: Shall we dance?

Newsletter – April 2021

Wed, 21 Apr 2021 16:57:00 GMT

Hello Global Play Brigade!

Our newsletter is out today, April 22nd, which is Earth Day. I’m quite happy to be greeting you all from a beautiful part of this earth: Sedona, Arizona in the southwestern United States. The physical terrain here is beautiful, as you can see. It’s also personally beautiful for me because I am seeing my 94-year-old father for the first time in over a year because of the covid pandemic.

We’re at a difficult point on Planet Earth these days. The Covid-19 vaccine is becoming more and more accessible in the richer, western countries, even while more people are becoming infected with new strains of the virus. It’s a bleaker picture in poorer countries. From Brazil, where political corruption is breeding a health crisis that is a crime against humanity, to India, where shortages of the vaccine are shutting down health centers routinely. Nearly 130 countries with 2.5 Billion people have not gained access to the vaccine at all. Today, as I make this video, almost 3 million people — that we know of — have died from Covid.

How do we stay sane, be healthy, be together during this frightening climate? This climate of uncertainty, loss, abandonment, and grief. How can we deal with this emotionally or spiritually?

Is there a vaccine or medicine for our spirits? For our mental well being?

There is a medicine; it’s called Play. We played as kids, and we play in sports and other organized forms of play. There’s also playing with how we feel and how we treat one another — playing with our pain, our love, and our creativity. Play doesn’t take away our loss, or our fear. But playing with other people — laughing together, making up stories, or improvising together — can inject us with hope. With a little bit of joy and imagination. With development.

Is Play a bandaid? No, it actually isn’t. Rather, it’s a life-affirming performance of possibility. It’s a way of saying to ourselves and one another: we’re not giving up. And so, in India, Brazil, Nigeria, the US, and elsewhere — amidst these challenging times — people are using play and performance to look up and reach out — building spaces for our human creativity and our social connection. That’s what the Global Play Brigade, and all of you, are giving to our fellow human beings. Today’s newsletter shares a little bit of what that looks like. So, let’s inject ourselves and each other with the play vaccine. It’s free, and it’s available to all.

Building Bridges for Mental Well-Being

Mon, 11 Jan 2021 17:53:15 GMT

We (Mana & Sean) met at a GPB Saturday community meeting back in June this year. Since it is still rare to see many other Asians in our meetings, Sean reached Mana over zoom chat, and then emailed to connect. That was the beginning of our collaboration.

Over zoom meetings we talked about the areas that we work in and our interests. It turns out that we both are passionate about the topic of mental well-being. And so, on 21st July, we had our first workshop with people from Bethel House, along with individuals from Hong Kong, China & Japan. Bethel House, located in Urakawa, Hokkaido Japan, is a community based organization, where people with mental illnesses live and work. Mana’s parents work there.

We had a total of around 12 people at the session. When we designed the workshop, we had a bit of a challenge. Bethel House can only put everyone in the same room for the session, while others would be joining through their individual devices. Being improvisers, of course we accepted that offer! The theme of that particular workshop was about connecting. Connecting with people that we meet from different places, connecting with physical movement and connecting with our stories, our childhood and our values. A woman in the first workshop told us afterwards that she usually doesn’t have a chance to meet people from outside her country. She was amazed and felt a connection with people from other countries.

We focused on creating a space that people felt comfortable to play, as sometimes playing requires taking a bit of a risk to step into the unknown. We paid attention to group dynamics while they were playing with another group over the virtual connection. People shared how they experienced the cultures in the different groups; someone from Hida Clinic described that Bethel House seemed to have a lot of humour between each other. We also provided a lot of flexibility for individuals in each group. They were free to walk in and out of the room during the workshop. At one point in the first session, a lot of people in Bethel House left the room. Some went to the bathroom, some went to have a smoke, leaving only three people there to play. It was rather funny! And we worked and played with it all.

When we did the mirror exercise, one participant didn’t know how to do it. He was smoking outside when Mana gave the instructions. As a result, he tried imitating the other person’s movements. When it was his turn, he created his movement. Later, he explained how he created his movement. He said he remembered about his childhood when he was dancing.

I (Mana) have known him since I was a baby. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was young. He took care of me a lot when I was a baby. I know some of his story of childhood and his family. It was the first time I saw him dance in memory of his childhood. I was so happy to be able to connect with these memories.

Finally, we also played with/expanded how we all think about what mental health is. In the workshop, people weren’t judged because of the categories of their illness or “disorders”. More important was the activity of how we created new things together, connect with each other and feel good about ourselves.

We encourage GPB players and facilitators to actively connect with people that you don’t know yet. None of this would have happened, if we (Mana and Sean) didn’t reach out to one another. Have a conversation about what you want to do. Surely, there will be things that between you, you can create, have some fun, and build friendships while serving others.

Imagi-Nations Impro: When Worlds Connect

Mon, 11 Jan 2021 17:30:30 GMT

Three continents, lots of two-person scenes, one group with visual impairments. Learn about our powerful online play sessions with visually impaired groups across the globe, by Victoria Hogg.

Read in English

Teen Space! Tackles #EndPoliceBrutality

Mon, 11 Jan 2021 17:23:41 GMT

What does protesting for justice, living as a young adult in three different continents, and creating beautiful poetry have to do with one another? Check out Jennifer Bullock’s blog for the answer.

Read in English

What are You Really Saying?

Mon, 11 Jan 2021 17:18:18 GMT

A Global Play Brigade session about how we communicate meaning to others. Designed and facilitated by Yvette Alcott and Cheng Zeng.

The Global Play Brigade is on a mission to change the world, one small step at a time. One of the ways we thought we could contribute to this mission was to look at how we communicate with each other. We figured, if you are going to make change, you need to be able to authentically connect with others. We designed a session of play and improv games to draw attention to what we say, how we say it, and to see how clearly we get our meaning across to others.

We started with everyone telling their life story in 30 seconds – all at once! Could we hear any details about each other? Not at all! Just a whole lot of noise coming at us, which can be a common issue with everyone wanting to be heard but with nobody listening.

We mimicked each other – imitating each other’s words and tone to bring our attention to the micro channels of communication. This was an especially lovely game to watch when two people from entirely different cultures perfectly mimicked the others’ accent and tone.

We unravelled the notion that when we speak, everyone immediately understands us! We asked everyone to think of an intention to put behind a very simple exchange, which could be expressed in English, another language, or in gibberish, and we had to guess what we were saying to each other.

Along the way we remembered to slow down and feel the soothing and calming effect of truly connecting with each other with a “Zoom Gaze”, and then we finished off by dancing out, showing some emotion! It was a session with people from the U.S., China, Australia and Italy crossing cultures and borders to connect with clarity. Just knowing that those who came along “felt more connected to others”, “felt more conscious of listening to others and taking notice”, and “had fun” in the session was the most wonderful reward for both of us (Yvette and Cheng).

Watch our Free Offerings page for future events!

Support our Young People of Nigeria (3 Minutes)

Mon, 11 Jan 2021 17:08:12 GMT

#NewNigeriaMovement #EndSars

We Are Becoming

Spontaneous poetry by Nigerian youth at a Global Play Brigade/Street Project Foundation workshop.

Watch this 46-second video

Global Play Brigadiers in the News – Nigeria

Tue, 22 Dec 2020 17:04:13 GMT

Damilola Apotieri-Abdulai and Marian Rich were featured on Arise News sharing the benefits of improv theatre on mental health.

Watch the Episode

Playing in Spanish

Tue, 22 Dec 2020 16:59:04 GMT

We’re so excited that the Global Play Brigade hosted its’ first Spanish language workshop.

The idea of holding a session completely in Spanish had long been part of the GPB plan, and so we Brigadiers, Jorge Burciaga and Miguel Cortés from Mexico, and Mayarí (Maya) Pérez and María (Majo) José Castrillo from Costa Rica joined forces to make this Spanish workshop series happen.

Jorge, Miguel and Maya had already met at the Performing the World conference in 2018. Maya and Majo are longtime friends and co-workers. And, all four of us have been students of the International Class at the East Side Institute . We were excited to work together to create a few “first times”:

A play workshop was in Spanish for Spanish-speaking people.
Mexico and Costa Rica collaborated together in the Brigade.
Majo and Maya facilitated a GPB workshop

The preparation sessions were an adventure we really enjoyed a lot; and we decided to organize a series of 3 play sessions in Spanish. The first one was called “Fiesta Contraindicada” or Contraindicated Party, the second “Catársis pandémica” or Pandemic Catharsis and the third one “Diálogo entre virus” or Dialogue among Viruses. 40 people registered for the first session. 10 people from Mexico, Costa Rica and the US attended. (We’ve learned that more people sign up than usually attend!).

The aim of this first session was to have a party. In pandemic times you shouldn’t do that in person, but no one says you can’t do it virtually – so with this feeling of celebration, we started!

We welcomed participants with music and greetings and followed the same script we have for all the GPB sessions, translated into Spanish, both at the beginning and end.

The session had three elements:

Getting people comfortable with the zoom platform, and people getting to know each other.
The introduction to gibberish and playing with it.
Smaller group work to share:
Their significant experiences in these pandemic times.
Creating a poem in gibberish and translating it to movement and into Spanish.

At the end we asked people to share their experiences. They were very grateful for this much-needed space to have a different relationship to computers, zoom, and with people they didn’t know. Comments included:

-A very nice space to connect with different people. Great activities!

-Thank you very much. I feel super happy and have lots of ideas to share with my family and friends in a more creative, productive and joyful way. From 1 to 10, I give this a 10.

-I'm not bad at playing, which follows… I´m terrible! But I really liked the kind way you accompanied us. Thank you so much for moving me!

-It went so fast! It was a lot of fun and I think these spaces were already necessary before the pandemic, and now even more! Thank you for sharing and I’m in to join you and play next time.

For all of us, this experience marks a beautiful beginning for collaboration and friendship that we’ll continue to develop.

Playing Through Grief

Sat, 12 Dec 2020 14:31:38 GMT

Since we launched the Global Play Brigade in June, Marian Rich has been co-leading a weekly session entitled: Create Connection & Build Community Through Play. She co-facilitates the sessions with a rotating team of co-facilitators. Soon after Marian’s father died in mid-September, she was scheduled to co-facilitate with Kara Fortier, a new facilitator with GPB. Given Kara’s interest in ritual and spirituality and Marian’s recent loss, they decided to create and design a session playing with loss, large and small. This is their story:

In the last six months, all of our lives have been affected in some way by the events of 2020 – COVID, lockdowns, protests, political turmoil and climate crises. In our session, we acknowledged the losses we’ve all been experiencing, from the crushing kinds to the smaller losses we experience that often hit us with unexpected force.

We designed a session to play with processing loss and grief through ritual, which is a close cousin of imaginative play. We began the session with having people write how they experience loss in the chat. Some of their comments: “Sadness at the loss of the future I was expecting,” “losing touch with friends,” “can’t visit my young adult kids,” “aging /loss of flexibility,” “loss of hope and the shocking realization (again) that I’m not in control.”

We began by playing with and imbuing ordinary objects with extraordinary value in the Museum of Every-Day Objects where participants simultaneously grab an object and showcase it as though they are the artists who created these “works of art,” with classical music playing behind them. Then we played with our objects in ways they weren’t meant to be used. They playfully laid the groundwork for what it means to create a ritual. Then people went into breakout groups to create a ritual that represented either one person’s loss or encompassed the loss of the whole group.

It’s hard to describe the experience of watching each group perform rituals they collaboratively created. In every instance, the human need to imaginatively share grief with one another stood out beautifully. One person holds an object with great care as the others follow her lead – only they don’t have objects in their hands. They’re participating in her ritual even though it’s not their pain. In another the group held their objects and recited a line of their collective poem – the grief of each part became a whole. In another, they all let out cheers of joy.

The instinct to play is the same instinct that leads us to these creative ways to process grief, large and small. It was an honor for us (Marian and Kara) to play in a way that reminds us of our deep human connections – and that our playful imaginations can aid us in times of sadness, sorrow and joy.

About our mission

Sat, 12 Dec 2020 14:29:01 GMT

Cathy shares the Global Play Brigade’s founding principles and mission.

Live Your Indigenous Ancestry

Thu, 01 Oct 2020 13:25:59 GMT

At Brincada do Brincar on September 12, 2020, 45 participants: babies, children, teenagers, and adults, Brazilians and foreigners (USA and Mexico), were welcomed to the sound of the song Nhanderú Toexá, performed by the Nhe’ẽ Ambá Group, in which the religiosity of the Guarani people is sung. Each participant played with their body to connect to the tune, in an initial invitation to connect to Pachamama. After this, a raffle was presented to the public to raise funds for survival at Aldeia Tavaí. As part of the introduction, the poet and Digtmed group participant, Bárbara Manja, played with the theme of mother nature reciting her poem in video format presented to everyone with access here .

In the sequence, Kuaray (the indigenous leader) and his friends from the village Tava’í arrived to play with everyone singing a song of their own. In a virtual handshake, the participants played with their bodies to the sound of a song dedicated to Guaraní children. From there, there was time to play with the Guarani language and try to pronounce new sounds, new pronunciations and intonations to greet friends: Djavy Djú (good morning), Nhande ka’arundju (good afternoon), Nhané Pytun Djú (good night) )! Kuaray then invited everyone to play and connect with their god. In Guarani, their god is Tupã and their connection to Tupã is through a pipe, which is lit to ask for protection. Kuaray also shared the importance of the rattle, which is a sacred instrument that emits the snake sound, which chases away the tormenting spirit.

After observing these objects from their village, participants were asked to search for indigenous objects at their own homes.

In thirty seconds, the little windows on the screen were filled with objects that each participant was going to describe and invent a legend about. Before getting started, participants discussed what a legend is. Then they split into breakout rooms of 6-7 people and using the improv tool of “Yes and”, they created and presented their legend with their objects.

To end the meeting, in Guarani tradition, everyone got some fruits or seeds for the Consecration. Kuaray explained the importance of this consecration and asked that people reflect on the food growth cycle and be grateful for it during this ceremony. To finish the meeting, there was a quick presentation of our Brincadas and the Global Play Brigade.

Global Play Brigade

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GPB Africa Launch

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PLAYTELLIGENCE: Play & Learning Beyond Borders - Our Reflection

Celebrating 4 Years

GPB Turned 4 in June

Play & Mental Health

A reflection on Heart & Power: Utilizing Play for Your Mental Health

Heart & Power Playshops

Impact on Mental Health

Embracing Uncertainty

Highlights from Our Workshop at the Learning Planet Festival

Hello from Play Back North America

Where does your practice fit on the circle map above?

Celebrating Japanese Food

GPB Japan hosts third playshop

The Many Faces of GPB One Asia

This is a picture of some of the many faces of GPB ONE ASIA

GPB Takes Center Stage at TASP Conference

Playship: A pathway for building sustainable and equitable playful spaces.

5 Benefits of Laughter Yoga

Why you should try Laughter Yoga

Let's Talk About Dementia

Smash the Silence Around Dementia

Portunholish: How All the Borders Disappeared

Playing with Portuguese, Spanish & English

The Making of the GPB Play Generator

The Play Book Ensemble's Creative Process

Fostering Change Makers

Playshops aren't polished performance so much as they are messy and intriguing invitations to play

"I learned about my fellow participants' multicultural backgrounds. I relearned that this group is exactly what I was looking for. I was positively surprised by the energy I picked up during the session coming to it rather exhausted.

A BIG THANK YOU to all you lovely people from 17 different countries."

Manuela (Italy), Facilitator Jam attendee

A New York Tour to Remember

Executive Director Rita Ezenwa-Okoro's NYC Trip

The becoming journey of GPB One Asia

There is something coming into existence… Global Play Briga de One Asia! ﻿

GPB Meets with the United Nations

Rita & Cathy's Meeting with United Nations Alliance of Civilizations

GBP Japan Launch

Enjoy the differences – a creative experiment!

GBP Nigeria Hikes to "stop the cut”

GPB Nigeria collaborates with Wave Foundation in 16 Days of Activism

Open the Door for "WE"

India's 25th Annual Talent Show for Specially-Abled Youth

Cultura con Sabrosura

﻿ A cultural exchange through play

Welcome Rita Ezenwa-Okoro as GPB's Executive Director

We've got big news!

RITA'S SPEECH

﻿

La Masculinidad y Los Roles de Género en La Jugada

El hombre que no juega ha perdido para siempre al niño que vivía en él y al que echará terriblemente de menos.

Pablo Neruda

¿Puedes jugar con ser un matón?

¿Quién como yo?

Playing With Masculinity and Gender Roles

The man who does not play has lost forever the child

who lived in him and who he will miss terribly.

Pablo Neruda

¿Puedes jugar con ser un matón? (Can you play with being a bully?)

¿Quién como yo? (Who, like me?)

Fighting the Isolation of Aging Through Play

The Global Play Brigade Story Chain Project Connects Seniors with Brigadiers Around the World

Pam's Story

There is something coming into existence… Global Play Briga de One Asia!

A cultural exchange through play

El hombre que no juega ha perdido para siempre al niño
que vivía en él y al que echará terriblemente de menos.