In May 2025, something meaningful unfolded in Koppal, Karnataka — a new partnership between Play for Peace and Visthar, a Bangalore-based organization dedicated to social justice, gender equality, and transformative community learning.

Together, we embarked on a shared mission: to nurture well-being, resilience, and compassion among youth and women in marginalized communities, through the power of play.

Gender, Health, and Well-being Through Play

In collaboration with certified Play for Peace trainers Agyat and Swati, Visthar hosted a two-part Play for Peace training for 60 frontline staff and community facilitators. These participants came from Visthar’s initiatives such as Kanasu Kishori Sanghatane (KKS) — a collective of adolescent girls and youth programs focused on constitutional values and community leadership.

The goal?

To equip facilitators with the knowledge, skills, and playful methodologies needed to strengthen care, inclusion, and peer support in their communities.

Through cooperative games, reflection exercises, and experiential learning, participants explored how play can be a transformative tool to address sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), promote mental well-being, and foster peer-to-peer counseling.

Despite differences in language and background, the spirit of connection filled the sessions. Translators Nazar and Asha supported the facilitation process, ensuring every participant — fluent in Kannada, and some in Hindi and English, could fully engage and express themselves.

Empowering Communities, One Game at a Time

The Play for Peace approach encouraged participants to look at facilitation beyond instruction — as a process of empathy, inclusion, and collective discovery.

By the end of the training, each participant not only learned how to lead cooperative games but also how to process them, turning moments of laughter into lessons in trust, cooperation, and emotional healing.

The diversity within the group, most of whom were women from marginalized communities aged 22 to 35 — became a strength. Every voice contributed to reimagining what empowerment can look like when joy and play are at the center.

A Partnership Rooted in Shared Values

The new Play for Peace–Visthar partnership is more than a training collaboration. It’s a growing movement to integrate compassion-based, experiential learning into Visthar’s ongoing gender, youth, and peacebuilding programs.

Moving forward, the partnership envisions:

• Integrating Play for Peace methodologies into Visthar’s existing initiatives that promote social justice, gender equity, and well-being.

• Developing digital tools and localized resources, including Kannada-language content for the Kikori app, to make cooperative play more accessible to local communities.

• Launching 1–5 pilot Play for Peace Clubs within Visthar’s network, with the goal of expanding to all 60 staff members and youth collectives in the future.

This collaboration aims to blend Visthar’s decades of expertise in community empowerment with Play for Peace’s global experience in using play to build peace, creating a holistic, sustainable model for learning and transformation.

Looking Ahead

The partnership between Play for Peace and Visthar represents a shared belief: that well-being begins with belonging, and healing grows when people come together to play, reflect, and connect.

As this partnership continues to evolve, we look forward to seeing how playful learning will deepen Visthar’s impact across communities — nurturing resilience, empathy, and peace in the lives of those who need it most.