Students Around The World Discuss Racism And Learn The World Isn't As Small As They Think

"The World Is As Big Or As Small As You Make It" | Sundance Institute from Sundance Institute on Vimeo.

What makes you happy? What are some stereotypes that people have about you? Have you experienced racism and, if so, how?

These are the questions kids from around the world are asking to learn about each other.

"The World Is As Big Or As Small As You Make It," a short documentary made with a grant from Sundance Institute and support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, focuses on the Do Remember Me project and the way it uses technology to connect students in Philadelphia and New York with kids their age across the globe.

Founder Sannii Crespina-Flores uses online chat sessions to let the students talk with kids from countries like Kazakhstan, Nigeria and France.

"I look at it as retooling what they already have, which would be their cell phones, their iPods, their iPads," she said.

Interactions between the kids range from giving each other tours around their neighborhoods to showing off their dance and beatbox skills. They discuss the weather, their heritage and even serious topics like race.

After one African-American student described his experience with racism, the foreign student he was chatting with shared that news surrounding the deaths of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin had gone global and reached her country.

Though thousands of miles separate them, the kids are able to create relationships on a level that Crespina-Flores says provides more bridges than gaps between the youth of the world.

"Puberty is puberty. Being a teen is a teen. They find that there are so many similarities. They're more connected and more alike than they are separate. It's an exchange of possibilities."

H/T A+

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