Welcome Rita Ezenwa-Okoro as GPB's Executive Director
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-cultural 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
