Highlights 2025

This year we celebrated our 25th anniversary. With your partnership, Right To Play has reached more than 18 million children in 47 countries over the past 25 years. From classrooms to communities, your belief in play has helped children overcome challenges, build confidence, and create brighter futures for themselves and their families.

Here’s what you made possible in 2025:

Play improves learning for every child – new policy brief

Your partnership has enabled us to develop Accelerating Foundational Learning—a compelling policy brief that champions integrating play into classrooms and enables teaching practices that improve literacy, numeracy, and life skills for all children. Thank you! Your voice has helped us create a brief that equips educators and policymakers with evidence that play-based learning works — and recommends bringing play-based approaches to scale to ensure millions more children are learning and reaching their full potential.

The world stands up for the right to play on June 11

Thank you for joining over 18,000 people from around the world to celebrate the UN-recognized International Day of Play! Your support increased awareness by nearly 50% this year, with over 2,600 signatures on our Open Letter to the Children of the World, calling for every child’s right to play. By recognizing this day, we unite voices across sectors, communities, and countries to ensure that play remains protected, prioritized, and accessible to every child, everywhere.

Play-based learning scales nationwide in Ghana

With your support, over 48,000 kindergarten teachers across all 261 districts and 16 regions will receive high-quality, play-based training through the Government of Ghana. This nationwide effort brings together Right To Play, the Ghana Education Service, and other organizations to launch an 18-month “Leadership Communities of Practice” project, strengthening teacher professional development, district leadership, and community engagement in play-based early childhood education.

Girls gain confidence and safety through sport in Senegal

With you by our side, we empowered girls to claim their rights and challenge harmful gender norms through the power of sport and play. Through the RECAF-JEU program, more girls in Senegal are redefining what’s possible. 66% of youth reported their perception of Gender Based Violence has reduced and their knowledge around Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights has increased. As a result, 44.5% more boys now speak out against gender-based violence, early marriage, and female genital mutilation.

More students are returning to school in Pakistan

Together with Right To Play, you are helping expand our Accelerated Learning Program to reach 500 schools. In Pakistan, 90% of the 1,500 students who completed this program graduated with a certificate that allows them to join regular classes. Through the Roshan Rastay project, we are working to help out-of-school children return to learning and catch up with their peers.

Circle of Hope has launched in Gaza

Despite extremely challenging conditions, Circle of Hope, a psychosocial and learning program for children in Gaza has launched! We finalized the curriculum and facilitator manual—covering 40 structured sessions. These sessions focus on psychosocial support, foundational learning, life-saving skills, and caregiver engagement. Five Temporary Learning Spaces in southern Gaza are currently being rehabilitated for safe implementation. With all preparatory steps complete, sessions have begun as of November 2025, bringing urgently needed learning and psychosocial support to children affected by the conflict.

You give them a small toy, and they hold it as if it were their homeland, as if it were a cloud lifting them away from the war, a cloud that rains dreams. You offer them a smile, and they return it with a laugh louder than the bombs.” - Ahmad Mortaja, Psychosocial Specialist in Gaza

Right To Play says THANK YOU

At a time when being a child is more difficult and dangerous than ever, your support is critical to ensuring that all children have a chance to be protected, educated, and empowered to rise above adversity and thrive. We hope you are proud of all that you made possible this year!