Intercultural relations

Each year, 250+ buildOn high school students from Philadelphia, Bridgeport, CT, the Bronx, Chicago, Detroit and San Francisco/Oakland who hail from the most challenged communities, are given a unique and wonderful opportunity to enable the impoverished people of Malawi, Mali, Nepal, Haiti and Nicaragua to obtain a basic education.

During the trip, they live with a host family and experience the simplicity and roughness of life in a developing nation without resources like running water or electricity. They mix concrete, make bricks and form walls by hand alongside villagers, immersing themselves in the difficult labour of construction. Over a two-week period, the opportunities for developing empathy are enormous. Students not only learn the value of sweat equity, but form powerful personal relationships that enable them to draw parallels between their host families’ struggles and their own.

Each team consists of 18 high school students, 2 teachers and buildOn staff. Upon their return, buildOn members share their experience with fellow students and community members. Their post-travel essays, letters, poems and social media posts illustrate beautifully how being welcomed into a community thousands of miles from the inner-city United States and into the home of a village family changes the way they see themselves and the world.

We created techniques for building empathy. Students are shown stimuli (staff narratives, film clips, questions asked in previous workshops) and are given ways to respond:

1. Empathetic listening - CLICK
Connections – at which points did you feel a connection with the speaker?
Listening to differences - can you identify 3 key differences between you and them?
Interest – What could you do to show you were interested in them?
Complexity – who else could you speak with to get a wider perspective?
Knowledge – What have you learnt? Where can you learn more?

2. Scrutinising Questions - ASKeR
What is the asker Assuming? Where do the assumptions come from?
Is it really a question or a Statement in disguise?
Could people misunderstand any Key words?
How could it be Rephrased?

3. Answering difficult questions – ASKEE
Assume Good Intent
Give a Spectrum of beliefs
Keep it short
Explain jargon/foreign words
End with a positive

Using these techniques, young people have the skills to connect with people who are different, even if (and especially when!) they disagree. They learn to be more aware of their judgements of others, where their assumptions may have come from and know how to make language helpful in showing empathy.

In order to help students learn how to do this, I have teamed with our school's Language Arts teacher and Art Teacher to help students gain a better understanding of the conflicts and genocides of the 20th century that we study and provide an outlet for what they think should happen in a current conflict; specifically, the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Students begin by reading Martin Luther King Jr's "World House Essay," which highlights the problems that lead to conflict and helps explain how a better understanding and tolerance for all cultures and religions along with a policy of non-violence on the part of nation-states will help us end conflict once and for all. Students then trace the development of laws against Human Rights violations and Genocide as we study the conflicts in history and read about conflicts through an assortment of books in language arts. Finally, students apply what they have learned to the Arab-Israeli conflict, writing a letter to their member of congress and then creating artwork that memorializes a genocide or draws attention to a current conflict. These posters allow students to both express their views through art while also giving them a way to make their work public, as these posters have been displayed at Wright State University, the Dayton Peace Museum, and the Dayton Art Institute. This allows the community to interact with the posters and even purchase the art. The money raised through poster sales is then donated to the organization of the class's choosing so that students are actively contributing to others' well being.

“SD saved my college experience. People about whom I held such hateful prejudices became more than the one-dimensional labels I stuck on them....and the shift in my worldview that followed caused me to act and treat people differently.” -Grace, SD participant. We work with students like Grace through national summits, on-campus inclusive leadership workshops, evaluations, and weekly mentoring. After graduation, SD’s “different way of knowing” persists: alumni like Grace start SD in their Peace Corps posts and at major consulting firms, bring their conflict navigation skills to organizations like Teach for America, and alter a culture of debate as lawyers. Understanding that identity-based exclusion and violence start in childhood, we want to begin building a culture of empathy in high school, or earlier. Through our proposed pilot, two highly-trained SD college students will co-moderate a group of 10 high school students. Together, they will listen, understand, and take action. Using SD, diplomats have created peace treaties; workplaces have increased retention; and college students have amended racial profiling policies, hosted Mental Health Awareness campaigns, and created Bias Response Initiatives. Likewise, high school students will develop their own projects to tackle issues such as bullying. After the initial pilot, college and high school students will expand their reach by moderating dialogue-to-action for middle and elementary students to build an expectation and culture of empathy.

Our pilot programs with over 1500 students suggest that our focus on developing awareness of worldviews promotes empathy and compassion and fosters social and emotional well-being in children. It provides tools for becoming effective leaders and engaged global citizens. In one classroom that struggled with the challenge of diverse worldviews, for example, the WVLP helped students create a classroom environment of inclusivity and collaboration. By promoting team building through collaborative projects, another group of students applied their new learning by creating an afterschool mentorship program.

In this project, teachers from diverse classrooms will participate in a 3-day professional development workshop to infuse 18 pilot tested, experiential multi-media lessons into their classrooms. This innovative program is available on the Collaborize Classroom online platform (http://www.collaborizeclassroom.com/) allowing it to be easily accessed, distributed widely, and adapted to specific populations, providing the capacity for diverse classrooms across the country and around the world to share learning experiences.

The teacher training will be supplemented by a year-long webinar program offering ongoing support. An online discussion forum will be available for teachers to share best practices, strategize around challenges and possibilities, and communicate stories and results that will inspire others.

Historically we can see that some multi-dimensional (ethnic, social status, religious) conflicts involving these two groups have occurred, e.g. the 1998 riots. Regarding this event, some have argued that sentiments were used as a provocative tool by a group of irresponsible people to manipulate the perceptions of vulnerable, often less educated, poor group of people against certain social groups. By giving the poor children opportunities to be educated in a good quality school, they will be better equipped to compete in the labour market, and thence are able to improve their own and their families’ lives. When they are well-educated and economically-sufficient, we hope that prejudicial views will automatically be challenged and the potential of being provoked to cause future conflict outbreaks along the religious, racial, ethnic lines will be diminished. Our attempt of prejudice reduction can work more effectively through the quality relationship that is built between the foster parent and fostered child. Through activities to maximise contact time and nurture bonding such as going out to cinema or shopping, giving presents or birthday cards to each other and sending festive greetings during religious celebrations, we hope that mutual understanding and respect can be built. The involvement of community outside the school environment in the programme is essential because YPSIM wishes to minimise the often criticised mismatch between school culture and reality outside schooling.

If I had $10,000, I would take 4-5 students to Istanbul and a few other locations in Western Turkey to visit with locals who I can easily make contact with. We would visit a number of ancient mosques and souks and attend some lectures by graduate students on Islam, the Arab Spring, and Turkish culture. We would combat Islamophobia by becoming informed, and bring our photographs and lessons home so participants would be able to educate peers from a position of experience. In a school of (next year, since we will be 3/4 grown) 340 students, having 4-5 students with this experience would be enormous. I know which students would benefit most- open-minded but thus far somewhat ignorant, having had limited opportunities, introspective, and reasonably popular, to captivate the attention of their peers.

The project uniquely (through the arts) addresses the counselor’s challenge to combine a deep understanding of empathy and how it may be built up in a school community. Pragmatic and creative activities the councelors will receive will serve childrens’ needs and form a peace culture in schools.

This project will support 30 school counsellors to develop professional skills and competencies over 24 training hours. Trainees will be organised into professional peer teams for practice (15 paired teams who will work in 4 targeted schools) and will be supervised by a specialist mentor (twice a month for each team) throughout duration of the project.

Monitored classroom implementation will be carried out with primary age class groups of 30 children each in 4 schools, reaching a total of 5,400 children. The project will reach out to families and community by communicating both process and the outcomes of building preventive empathetic approaches through the arts.

The program is designed as a series of model activities. Non Violent Communication, Theater Of The Oppressed and Restorative Circles excercises are a few innovative methods that the program will incorporate for effective empathy building. The model includes empathatic communication, coping with aggression, awareness and respect for diversity. Empathy building addresses potentially discriminatory issues such as language, culture, gender and disability.

Participants will engage in such activities as music, body percussion, movement, role play and drama, visual arts and design to nurture positive self concept.

One game was about the impact of words. "Words are like windows, or walls". I gave them small papers, and asked them to write sincerely the word or the sentence that hurt them most, and made them cry. In one class, the harsh words were sectarian ones. "You are a dirty Muslim", "We hate you Christians"... It was a deep wound in this class. So I asked the Muslims in the class to prepare an éxposé, for next week, where they use all creative ways to tell us about Islam as they see it, as they live it. They spent the week excited, and came with drawings, and a beautiful story where they explained Islam to their classmates. Everybody was silent and listening. The week after it was the turn of Christians to tell Christianity to their friends. At the end of the session, I asked :"what did you discover?". And I was amazed by the similarities they discovered in both religions. They mentioned the bottom line of faith: Be good, be loving, be kind... The week after, we wrote the nicest words ever said to them, and they discovered how we all need to be appreciated. The rest of the year went with minor sectarian atmosphere. And this class is until today an empathic one on religious side.
The same exercise did a tremendous effect in another class on the "bad words" and "big words", students and parents alike found it very effective.

Taking the example of a specific school, per school, three teachers are invited to take part in a Learning about Living training, held on regional basis, The teachers learn about participatory teaching methods, how to use the Learning about Living ICT tools in the class, about Sexual and reproductive health information for teenagers. They are given a CD and paper manual with all the contents and help with installation.
In some cases the schools are given a laptop and a projector. Each school is supported by a local or regional ngo to whom they can get support.

In the class the contents are aligned with the curriculum, the teachers give the lessons on all the topics such as self-esteem, leadership, gender equality, body abuse, hiv/aids prevention and many others. Students now have access to non judgemental information and skills on topics essential to healthy growing up. Further if a student has a particular problem which goes beyond the classroom - youth friendly teaching on life topics tends to bring forth many individual cases - the teacher can refer students to the annonymous helpline 'My Question' or be referred to a local ngo specialised in youth friendly services.

Outside of the school setting the mobile helpline is provided nationwide to all young people. They can call or text (free) and get accurate and speedy answers to their questions. Trained knowledge workers reply in local language
As a side effect the program also encourages more participatory teaching methods in the participating schools and improves the ICT skills of students and teachers.

In their plays, girls decide their characters, the location, and brainstorm problems and solutions based on the theme of that session. The theme is a thread woven throughout the whole process through discussion, posters in the room, and performing and visual art activities. Our themes are directly related to the key challenges girls face such as “Confronting Bullying,” “Imperfectly Me,” and “The Brand New Play: Trying New Things.”

We bridge art with what science knows works to improve the social/emotional lives of girls. We use the Kidpower curriculum, among other influences, to integrate practical skills into the process and the script itself. For example, last year, Ava chose to be a teacher who led the “bravery class.” Ava was rather shy and we loved how she decided to challenge herself in this way. Her first line in the play was: “Okay Class. Before you prepare to graduate, it is important to learn how to speak up and advocate for yourself and others. But this takes a lot of bravery and it takes a lot of practice. So, let’s practice some things we can say to try to stop putdowns.”
A parent once shared: “After camp, we moved and the kids had to go to a new school. I was nervous about my daughter making new friends. But, when I asked her about it, she said, ‘I’m not scared, we practiced how to make friends in Go Girls!. I know what to do.’”
Now, our programs have inspired a series of chapter books that tell the story of a fictional group of girls, who, like real Go Girls! make and perform plays that they believe will change the world.

Historically some multi-dimensional (ethnic, social status, religious) conflicts involving the aforementioned groups occurred, e.g.the 1998 riots, where horizontal factors (ethnic, race, religion) were enforced by vertical factors (political manipulation, socio-economic jealousy)to cause outbreaks. In relation to this past event, some people have argued that sentiments and stereotypes were used as a provocative tool to manipulate the often less educated, poor group of people to attack certain ethnic group, perceived to be well-off. By giving the poor children opportunities to be educated in a good quality school, they will be better equipped to compete in the labour market, and thence are able to improve their own and their families’ lives. When this group is well-educated and economically-sufficient, we hope that provocation to induce conflict will no longer work and peaceful society can be achieved. When combined with the close interaction and good quality relationship that is built between the foster parent and fostered child from different social backgrounds, the efforts towards prejudice reduction will be amplified. Through activities to maximise contact time and nurture bonding such as going out to cinema or shopping, giving presents or birthday cards to each other and sending festive greetings during religious celebrations, we hope that understanding and respect can be built. The involvement of community outside the school environment is essential because YPSIM wishes to minimise the often criticised mismatch between school culture and reality outside schooling.

Recent large scale humanitarian crises, complex emergencies, and trends in international medical demand a robust ethical framework to ensure responsible, sustainable, culturally competent medical care and education. The need for such a framework was observed by the principle organizers of this initiative while providing medical care in an urban emergency department in Port Au Prince, Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. Through discussions with many clinicians with experience in humanitarian relief, it has been observed that ethical dilemmas are common in international medical practice and that providers are often ill-prepared when these dilemmas arise. There is an urgent need for consensus guidelines to serve as a resource to support an ethical decision making process for medical providers confronted with the issues inherent in the provision of care in a multi-cultural, politically diverse international arena. Our plan is to ensure that in the near future, all providers engaged in international emergency medicine will have this ethical consensus statement as a reference when providing care in diverse settings.

A typical Poetry Pals program consists of students from three schools (Muslim, Catholic, and Jewish) coming together for three days of interactive activities. Each of the three days of programming begins with the group being led through warm-up activities to develop a safe, comfortable environment. The students then break into smaller, mixed groups to participate in interactive activities that assist them in developing and writing poetry. Following these breakout sessions the entire group reconvenes for a wrap-up exercise. The three days of programming concludes with a community event in which students share the poetry they created with their families and members of their community.