Open the Door for "WE"

Ishita Sanyal • March 27, 2023

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, Ashwini would silently join with his father 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.


Turning Point, in collaboration with Global Play Brigade, presented the virtual Open The Door online program on 7th January, 2023 to commemorate its 25th 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.

CHANGEMAKERS PLAYFEST 2025: Creating Power Through Play

By Global Play Brigade • December 12, 2025
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

By Global Play Brigade • December 12, 2025
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!