Alliance for Childhood in Brazil !

​World Play Week

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Protecting the Wonder of Childhood

This is the theme chosen by the Alliance for Childhood Brazil for 2025, guiding the initiatives of World Play Week, which will take place from May 24 to June 1, and the Week of Childhood and Culture of Peace, from October 6 to 12.

We believe that protecting the wonder of childhood is a commitment for everyone. It means acting with profound respect and care, ensuring that children can exist in the world with strength and dignity, while preserving their essence in its fullness.

This protection involves guaranteeing appropriate care and fundamental rights, but it also goes beyond that: it means cultivating the best conditions for childhood to flourish. We must promote and maintain time and space for free play—the natural language of children, essential for their integral development. Through free play, they explore the world, nurture creativity, build bonds, and connect with themselves and others.

Protecting the wonder of childhood also requires creating safe, accessible, and welcoming environments, whether in urban or rural settings, which must be designed with inclusion and care in mind.

It also means respecting the needs and interests of babies and children, honoring their individual rhythms, and recognizing childhood as a time for unique and authentic experiences. Childhood should be lived fully in the present, free from external pressures and excessive screen time. This demands a society committed to dialogue, valuing differences, empathy, patience, climate justice, and environmental balance.

Childhood must be lived in the present, free from external pressures such as hyper-competitiveness or excessive expectations. We need to balance contact with technology while preserving time for human interaction, outdoor play, children’s spontaneity, their creativity, and their—and our—sense of wonder at the real world.

Inspired by the Alliance for Childhood’s Charter of Principles, which states that “children have the right to dream and grow at their own pace,” we invite everyone to rekindle their sense of wonder toward childhood. Protecting childhood is an act of love and collective responsibility. This requires each of us to recognize the value of every child and commit to protecting and ensuring their rights, celebrating their joy, curiosity, and authenticity.

Children’s time is now. They deserve to live it fully, with the freedom to be who they are, surrounded by care, respect, and opportunities to grow in a world that values them as capable individuals. We must be enchanted by childhood in order to protect them and fully uphold their rights.

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HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN WORLD PLAY WEEK?

This will be the 16th edition of World Play Week, organized by the Alliance for Childhood in Brazil. Anyone can create games, lectures, debates, discussion groups, or other recreational activities dedicated to promoting free play. Activities can be held in person or online and take place in schools, parks, clubs, public squares, libraries, universities, open streets, or anywhere creativity can flourish—as long as these spaces are safe and welcoming for children. The only and most important rule is this: all proposed initiatives must be accessible and free of charge.

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WHO CAN ORGANIZE ACTIVITIES DURING WORLD PLAY WEEK?

Anyone can volunteer to create games, lectures, debates, discussion groups, or other activities around the common theme—Protecting the wonder of Childhood. These activities can be in person or virtual and can take place in a variety of public or private spaces, such as schools, parks, clubs, public squares, libraries, community halls, settlements, universities, hospitals, open streets, or anywhere else creativity can thrive—as long as the spaces are safe and welcoming for children.

All proposed initiatives must be free of charge. Activities can be organized by parents, educators, caregivers, institutions, schools, collectives, organizations, cultural associations, public administrators, and any other friends of childhood. Oh, and city governments are welcome too! Public managers are encouraged to participate as well.