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Building intentional, culturally grounded,
resilient communities of joy
The Global Happiness Initiative
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Welcome to The Global Happiness Initiative! We are a nonprofit organization dedicated to exploring how happiness is understood and cultivated across cultures and communities. Drawing on over a decade of global fieldwork and long-standing partnerships with educators and community leaders, we offer a relational happiness framework informed by evidence-based insights, cultural knowledge, and lived experience.
Our work began in classrooms — learning from the practices that foster joy, belonging, and well-being in diverse educational settings. Today, our mission has grown to include broader communities and leaders across sectors, united by a shared commitment to belonging, well-being, and meaningful connection. Through cross-cultural research, our relational happiness framework, global storytelling, and transformative travel experiences, we aim to co-create and uplift the practices that help people and places truly thrive. We believe that together, across disciplines and cultures, we hold the answers to one of the world’s most vital questions: How can we live — and lead — with joy?
Our Mission
The Global Happiness Initiative brings together evidence-based insights, cultural knowledge, and lived experience to explore the relational and cultural foundations of happiness — and how they are practiced in communities and shared spaces around the world. Drawing on over a decade of global fieldwork and partnerships with educators and community leaders, we offer a relational happiness framework and a growing body of research that highlights what helps people and places truly thrive. Through global networks, cross-cultural inquiry, and transformative learning journeys, we gather and amplify the practices that nurture joy, connection, and resilience. Our work is rooted in the belief that happiness is not a static goal, but a living practice — one we build together, across borders and traditions.
9+
Years of Experience
600+
Teachers Around the World
60+
Classrooms Reached
We all inherently know what makes us happy. Researchers have extensively explored the science behind both the cognitive and affective building blocks of happiness. These insights align with our relational happiness framework. However, there has been less focus on uncovering the practical strategies that actively cultivate happiness, particularly within learning spaces.
The Global Happiness Initiative is in a favorable position to explore these insights, with a decade worth of connections to classrooms around the world. We believe we collectively hold the answers to this knowledge.
Our cultures help set the standards that shape how we cognitively perceive and evaluate our own happiness (Veenhoven, 2009), influencing what we prioritize in our pursuit of it. The Global Happiness Initiative is dedicated to exploring and sharing knowledge about the diverse ways happiness is cultivated in classrooms worldwide. Through a global conversation, we seek to exchange strategies that inspire and empower educators to foster and sustain happiness in their unique learning spaces.
OUR FRAMEWORK
The Global Happiness Initiative Framework
The pursuit of happiness is one of humanity’s most enduring riddles, alongside inquiries such as ‘what is the purpose of life’ and ‘is there a higher power guiding the universe? We believe that no single framework can fully answer these complex questions.
We are offering a relational framework to explore the nature of happiness, inviting a broader, global dialogue among educators. Through this inquiry we aim to illuminate the many ways in which we perceive happiness and the tools to find it. How can we be happy? What do happy learning spaces look like?
The Power of A Happy School Environment
Creating a happy school environment brings a range of benefits. Here are some of them:
Connection
Enhanced relationships between students and educators.
Achievement
Improved academic performance and future workplace success.
Wellness
Strengthened immune systems and better physical health.
Safety
Reduced incidents of violence, bullying, depression, and anxiety.
Creativity
Greater resilience and self-confidence among students.
Resilience
Greater resilience and self-confidence among students.
JOIN OUR RESEARCH!
(Fill out our survey and it should take max. 5 minutes to complete)
The core focus of our postcard research project was to understand what makes teachers happy and contributes to their well-being. This directly affects the classroom environment, ultimately leading to happier learning spaces for students.
Instead of traditional surveys, we used postcards as a creative and hands-on way for teachers worldwide to share their experiences. The physical postcards themselves have the potential of becoming part of a future exhibit, showcasing the global reach of our study.
By collecting postcards from diverse locations, we are gaining perspectives from different cultures and educational systems. This has the potential to reveal universal factors that enhance teacher happiness across borders while also identifying cultural specificities that contribute to happy classrooms within each context.
Goals for our research
Generate more excitement about creating happy learning spaces.
Add to the body of knowledge on practical ideas.
Highlight/share in the collective, historical and cultural knowledge/gifts we have with each other, in our collective pursuit of what cultivates happiness and happy learning spaces.
Our Team
Our passionate team is dedicated to transforming educational experiences around the world. With expertise in various fields, we work collaboratively to empower educators and students alike.
Research & Curriculum
Sustain Our Mission
As GEA's nonprofit arm, The Happy Classrooms Initiative is dedicated to fostering happy learning environments worldwide. Your support makes a tangible impact through two key areas:
1. Teacher Travel Stipends: Help more educators join our global learning journeys, bringing back invaluable insights to their classrooms.
2. Research on Happy Learning Spaces: Fund essential research that uncovers and shares best practices for creating spaces where students and educators thrive.
Every donation directly supports these transformative efforts, driving our mission to create happier classrooms everywhere. Your donation fuels the mission to create joyful, thriving classrooms worldwide.
The Happy Classrooms Initiative is a 501(c) (3) non-profit organization. Your donations are tax-deductable. Want to know more? We are happy to send you our tax-exempt status application (Form 1023), and recent returns (Form 990) if prompted. Please connect with us through team@happyclassroomsinitiative.org
Let’s Make Classrooms Happier Together
Your support can help teachers and students thrive. Whether it’s funding research or helping teachers explore new ideas, every little bit makes a big difference.
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