Play & Mental Health

Cathy Salit • May 8, 2024

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:

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!