Others Are Us Programs

Teaser:
connecting school children in grades 4-8 in the United States with children in the Middle East and North Africa

Body:
We are currently looking to identify schools and teachers who are interested in a unique and innovative way of opening doors and windows onto the world for our children and helping them understand their place in our increasingly globalized world. Project EMBRACE will launch in 2 schools next fall.
OTHERS ARE US PROGRAMS
Imagining You and Your World and Project EMBRACE
In the fall of 2002, Others Are Us developed and launched Imagining You and Your World (IY&YW), a program connecting school children in grades 4-8 in the United States with children in the Middle East and North Africa. The program was intended as a peaceful means to fight the “war on terrorism”—by establishing bridges of understanding between cultures that were increasingly being cast as inevitably locked in conflict. Over the course of the next 4 years, children in more than twenty schools in seven countries—Yemen, Israel, Egypt, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United States—participated in IY&YW.
Through a dialogue of visual and written communication shared via OAU’s web forums, OAU programs allow children to have the kind of direct contact and personal experience with children from other cultures that has been found to foster genuine understanding and acceptance of others. Through their participation children come to see human faces where before they saw stereotypes, and form lifelong attitudes that prevent intolerance, racism, sexual bias, and hatred in its many destructive forms.
OAU based IY&YW on six core premises whose validity has been strongly substantiated over the course of the last four years through anecdotal evidence and informal pre and post-session surveys. These premises are
• Without opportunities for personal contact and interaction, children have no real idea of what other people, places and cultures are like and are susceptible to accepting stereotypes and misconceptions.
• Children look for and find similarities and things in common while getting excited about differences
• Through friendly and open communication, stereotypes recede and are replaced by real people with whom positive connections can be made
• Once a connection is made, children empathize with each other about the difficulties in their respective lives and look for solutions together
• After the program, participating children bring their new perspectives, newfound tolerance and eager openness back into their homes and communities.
• Adults, who initially express substantial negative feelings and beliefs about the cultures their children are exploring, change their attitude significantly after learning about the program through their children
Students participating in IY&YW during the course of a school year developed a greater understanding of geography and culture. They became adept at recognizing similarities and exploring and appreciating differences. Actual understanding and knowledge of others replaced speculation, hearsay and stereotypes. As the program progressed, students increasingly referred to each other as friends. Communication became more personal and sensitive. Towards the end of the program and based on verbal responses to facilitators’ questions, over 50% of participants began to identify with each other as part of a group despite ethnic, cultural and racial differences. After six months of contact and familiarity, over 50% of participants in both New York City and the Middle East/North Africa began to share their fears – almost exclusively about violence and conflict – and commiserate about issues facing them in their lives. Approximately 25% demonstrated an awareness of common challenges and an interest in inter-group cooperation to address those challenges. An informal poll disclosed that more than 85% of adults who were exposed to the program through their children, various exhibitions and presentations or the Others Are Us website indicated a willingness to reconsider their attitudes towards other races, cultures and religions. This willingness was frequently expressed in combination with an acknowledgment that prior attitudes were the result of lack of contact or misinformation.
In 2006-7, OAU developed Project EMBRACE, a program that builds upon the successes of IY&YW while also reflecting recent studies by social scientists evaluating the merits of various prejudice-reduction interventions. EMBRACE is unique because it integrates the three approaches to prejudice reduction that have been found to have limited effect when used alone into a single multi-year extended contact program—social cognitive, contact, liberation. Because it impacts children’s attitudes and beliefs, fosters interdependence and motivates action for social change, EMBRACE has the potential to effect a dramatic and lasting reduction in children’s level of stereotyping that far exceeds the benefits achieved through shorter, single-approach interventions.
Others Are Us is launching Project EMBRACE in cooperation with Fordham University’s Graduate School of Social Service. This collaboration will lead to a thorough evaluation of the project, as well as opportunities for student involvement in promoting diversity and conflict mediation through creating awareness of “the other” and building diverse communities, through children, parents, and school administrators. It is the social work role to thus empower communities and promote culturally competent practice in a diverse world.

Link:
www.othersareus.org