Build the Change

What is Build the Change?

Build the Change is all about giving children a voice and allowing them to express their hopes and ideas for a better future.

Children use their creativity to solve real-world challenges with LEGO® bricks and other creative materials – and it's all achieved through the power of play.

We're on a mission to make children heard and use their ideas and visions to inspire real meaningful change.

A Build the Change session with kids looking at a screen - immerse

Explore our free challenge packs

Download our free resource packs to help adult facilitators run Build the Change workshops with children aged 7-12. They include videos, presentations, speakers' notes, and printables.

The materials are designed to inspire children to get hands-on tackling a range of real-world social and environmental challenges; from protecting animals from climate change to designing places for people.

Learn more

Bringing children's ideas to the heart of decision-making
As part of our World Play Day 2026 adventures, we welcomed a group of school children into 10 Downing Street for a hands-on Build the Change workshop. It’s not just about building with bricks - it’s about giving children the space, confidence, and tools to imagine a better future and to have their ideas heard.
Reimagining cities of tomorrow
We're inviting children to imagine, build and even inspire the playful cities of tomorrow! Our Build the Change challenge, in partnership with design experts Arup, sees children's ideas shared with decision makers and city planners.

Take part in our Playful Cities challenge here.
Build the Change with Pharrell Williams
Ignite children’s creativity and celebrate individuality in this LEGO® Build the Change challenge with Pharrell Williams and his non-profit YELLOW.

Discover more here.
Children share ideas with Sustainability Pros
Our awesome partner, The Day, took Build the Change to the UK's Futurebuild event, a platform for experts from the built environment industry to share innovations for a more sustainable built future. What better place for our competition-winning young people to share their ideas on how they can make a difference through design.
Check out the awesome video here.
Build the Change celebrated World Environment Day
In celebration of the 52nd World Environment Day, we invited over 400 children to the Build the Change Event at the Guangzhou Children's Activity Center. The children got the opportunity to explore their understanding of "sustainability" and share their ideas on creating a community without waste. See the video to find out more.
Build the Change goes to COP26
Build the Change urged world leaders at COP26 in Glasgow to take note of children’s views on tackling climate change, and the voices of over 6,000 children resulted in the Building Instruction for a Better World booklet.
Check out this video.
The school garden make-over
Our friends at EarthWatch facilitated a Build the Change workshop and brought the students' ideas to reality in their school garden. If you’d like to hear more about EarthWatch, contact the Education team at education@earthwatch.org.uk
Check out the amazing video here.
Stop-motion film competition
More than 35,000 children got involved in a UK school competition with renowned film-maker Reggie Yates, who challenged them to create a short film highlighting an issue in their local community and ways to solve it. Congratulations to St. Hild’s College CE in Durham, UK.
See the winning film here.
New factory in the U.S.
We wanted local children to be part of the journey when we planned our new carbon-neutral run factory in Richmond, Virginia. To make that happen, we invited 250 children from the local community to inspire us with their ideas on how to get plants, insects and animals to thrive around the new factory. Check out the video here.
Fly Away Isles Playground
The ‘Fly Away Isles’ playground was built in Harlem, New York City, in celebration of the LEGO Group’s 90th anniversary. We used our Build the Change program to source ideas from children in the local community that were then used as inspiration by renowned artist Hebru Brantley in his design of a playground. It received a Drum award in 2022.
Check out this video for the full story.
New factory in Vietnam
Children from the local Hoi Nghia Primary School participated in a ‘Build the Change’ workshop where they used LEGO® bricks to create ideas for the factory’s employee and play spaces. Their ideas ranged from gardens filled with local plants to fun playgrounds made up of a rollercoaster, aquarium and soccer stadium.

Gallery of ideas

Check out the amazing gallery of children’s ideas below and upload your own that helps solve a real-world issue.

This eco-friendly cabin has several environmentally sustainable features. It has solar panels on the roof, water mill for energy, a rooftop garden, rain barrel, butterfly garden and apple tree.
Meet the robot that runs on garbage. The dog with the jetpack flies and collects garbage and puts it in the robot's garbage bin. The garbage collected goes through the green-gun that reuses objects.
It can protect itself from climate change with a sun-reflective skin and coat. It can also move quickly from place to place to find others of its kind.