Celebrating 4 Years

August 27, 2024

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:


  1. Play in Mental Health: Exploring how play can heal and nurture our emotional well being
  2. Play in Education: Empowering educators and students to weave play into the fabric of learning and development
  3. 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!

Playing with Social Construction: GPB at the Taos Institute Symposium

By Danielle Speciale • June 9, 2026
Author: Sarah Filman, GPB Director of Programs

GPB and Linking Circles Academy Collaborate on Project TECI

June 9, 2026
GPB and Linking Circles Academy Collaborate on Project TECI We love a good partnership. And we really love a partnership that puts play where it belongs, in a classroom. So when Linking Circles Academy came with a vision to transform how teachers in Nigeria show up for their diverse learners, we opened the door. Fewer than half of teachers in Nigeria do not receive any training on inclusive education, and there are a lot of learners with diverse learning needs and abilities. Founded by Elizabeth Adams, a brigadier, Linking Circles is an education-focused organization on a mission to improve learning outcomes in African schools through teacher development. They've already trained over 50 teachers through virtual and in-person workshops. Project TECI (The Equitable Classroom Initiative) is their boldest move yet, aimed at training and mentoring at least 1,000 primary and secondary school teachers to design and sustain inclusive, equitable, student-centred classrooms. It's ambitious. It's necessary. And it has GPB's name all over it. Inclusive classrooms need teachers who know how to meet a room full of different minds, different stories, and make every single one of them feel like they belong. And play is one of the most powerful tools for developing exactly that. That's why GPB is stepping in as a curriculum partner for Project TECI. Through our Educators Ensemble, we're bringing our play-based and experiential learning methodologies directly into the teacher training design. GPB will be providing play-based learning resources and frameworks to shape the TECI curriculum, offering advisory and technical input, and delivering a virtual training session for TECI facilitators on how to integrate play and performance-based approaches into their work. We'll also introduce GPB's work to the educators coming through the TECI programme — because once a teacher catches the play bug, there's no telling where it spreads. We're happy to be walking this road with Linking Circles Academy. We're bringing play into spaces where it has been absent for too long. And we can't wait to see the classrooms and the children that TECI helps transform. Let's play it forward!