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Newsletter – April 2021

April 21, 2021

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.

Can you make a year end donation?

By Global Play Brigade • December 9, 2024
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

By Global Play Brigade • December 6, 2024
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!
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