Cultural Exchange with Girls Learn International (GLI)

In this globalizing world we live in, peoples, ideas, and cultures are coming into contact with other at an increasing rate.  Therefore, cultural awareness, sensitivity, and understanding are of greater importance than ever before.  Help The Afghan Children (HTAC) has an on-going cultural exchange program that has tried to connect the children of Afghanistan with children in the United States in an effort to foster cross-cultural understanding.  As part of these efforts, HTAC works with Girls Learn International (GLI), an organization that advocates on behalf of underserved girls for the promotion of quality education for all girls.  Through GLI’s program, HTAC has currently partnered the Badakhshi Girls’ School in the Nejrab district of Kapisa province with the Hunter High School Chapter of GLI located in New York City.  The schools have exchanged letters and pictures describing themselves and expressing their excitement over being a part of sister schools that are connecting girls in New York, New York with girls as far away as Kapisa.  All the while, Hunter High School does the important work of raising funds to help support the education of their sisters in Badakhshi Girls’ School.
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Dominique is a 15 year-old 10th. grade student at the College of Staten Island High School for International Studies in New York who wants to become an international broadcast journalist. Arzoo is a 17 year-old 10th. grade Afghan student at Badakhshi Girls School in Nejrab, Kapisa Province, Afghanistan who also dreams of becoming a journalist. Staten Island, New York and Nejrab, Afghanistan are almost on opposite sides of the world and until recently, neither Dominique nor Arzoo knew one another, their common career goals, nor had any knowledge about each other's schools. 
Not anymore. Thanks to a wonderful partnership between Help the Afghan Children and Girls Learn International, we've been able to link selected student groups from Staten Island and Badakhshi to create an amazing cultural exchange program. Our program has two major objectives: Generate interest in cross-cultural learning in the USA and Afghanistan and raise awareness, and broaden attitudes of students, teachers, parents, and communities between these countries.
Their first exchange project was a School Guidebook that included: school photos, daily schedules, subjects taught, school activities, and school history. Not only did the students gain an appreciation of each other's cultures and learned of their shared desire for better understanding and world peace, they also discovered that they shared many common interests, hopes, and dreams - just like future journalists - Dominique and Arzoo. Who knows? Perhaps one day they'll meet and collaborate on an international story about their respective countries.
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Case High School – Cultural Exchange Projects

In 2007, the students in Kari Steckhauer’s World Literature     class had been studying Afghan and Islamic cultures and had read Khaled Hosseini’s best selling books: “The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns”.
Kari and her students learned about HTAC’s Cultural Exchange Program and wanted to become an exchange partner with one of our Afghan schools.  Later that year, the Case High students participated in an exchange project with Abdullah Bin-Omar, their new ‘sister’ school in the Paghman District, a few miles outside of Kabul.
Their project, narrating their lives, consisted of writing letters, poems, taking photos and preparing art work that told stories about the students, their lives at school, their families, backgrounds, and dreams for the future.
Both projects were completed and exchanged.  Photos and messages from the Case High School students were shared and discussed by Abdullah Bin-Omar teachers and students (after they were translated by HTAC’s educational team), and hung on the classroom walls for all students to see.
Similarly, project messages and photos of individual Abdullah Bin-Omar students were received by Kari and her students, and later published in the Case High School newspaper.
The excitement of receiving their respective exchange projects (from half a world away) also led to meaningful learning experiences by the students at both schools and a greater appreciation for diverse cultures and ideas, while finding common values and dreams among the American and Afghan students.
In 2008, Kari’s class will engage in a new exchange project – “What does democracy mean to me? ”