Shanoor Seervai recently wrote on the Wall Street Journal an interesting article about the History Project, a collaborative peace-building initiative promoted by youth from Pakistan and India that seeks to unveil stereotypes from history textbooks that perpetuate the animosity between people from these two countries over time. The project is devoted to provide “access for youth in their formative years to alternative perspectives on their shared heritage and to encourage a culture of rational and critical thinking.”

The History Project has been successful at publishing its first book with the same title (“The History Project“), which is available online for no fee. The book takes a number of differing narratives extracted from Indian and Pakistani textbooks alike, “juxtapose[d] unadulterated versions of history being taught in text books on either side of the border. We collated versions from history text books and put differing versions side by side, in an attempt to highlight the reality of an alternative perspective with equally convincing foundations.” If you look at the illustrations, you will also notice that the historical figures represented are faceless, in an attempt to detach this alternative narrative from stereotypes of well-known political personalities criticized or praised in other textbooks. Some key historical events such as the Civil Disobedience Movement, the Salt March or the Lahore Resolution are also depicted in the book: “Historical events are politicized to substantiate present events… and textbooks become a tool to bolster a political agenda.” The History Project continues to present initiatives, such as the Twitter feed that they will launch in June.

“But most importantly, we discovered that people laden as enemies in our minds without us ever having met them can be as good friends (or enemies) as anyone back home.” The History Project

This project reminded us of the TED talk video that we wrote about a few months ago “The Danger of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Adichie, who reflects about the perils of listening to incomplete or non-inclusive stories and narratives that reinforce stereotypes and affect the mutual understanding and co-existence of cultures, communities and individuals.

If you are interested in this area of the world, some further literature can be found here:

• Denizens of Alien Worlds, a study about the educational system in Pakistan by Dr. Tariq Rahman.
• A Pacifist Uncovered, an article about nonviolence activist Abdul Ghaffar Khan and his influential but also forgotten role in the independence of the region.
• A brief description of activities conducted by Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace (WISCOMP), a foundation that brings together young people from across South Asia, and specifically from India and Pakistan, who are motivated to engage in nonviolent social change and on issues of peace and security affecting the region.
• A review of ten contemporary South Asian writers who write about various cultural and societal issues in the region.

AFS USA, one of AFS Intercultural Programs’ member organizations which runs all of AFS’s exchange programs to and from the US, has recently launched a brand new section on their website that aims to provide inspiration and answers to some of the questions above. Their Educators website offers a variety of resources and tools that are not only relevant for US based Educators, but that can also be used by other teachers around the world.

Browse the Teachers Toolbox that includes suggested lesson plans and curricular resources or learn about the AFS Educational Goals. The portal also presents the various offerings AFS USA has for schools: group educational programs, scholarship opportunities for individual students or AFS school clubs are some of the examples.

Do you want to receive Education and Intercultural Learning news from AFS USA? Subscribe to the Global Classroom Newsletter that will bring new inspiration directly to your inbox every three months!

We are happy to share a fun, informative activity brought to you by AFS Intercultural Programs, Inc. that you can use to bring Intercultural Learning concepts to life!

Stretch Your Cultural Comfort Zone® is an exercise that aims to raise awareness of personal preferences in cultural contexts and encourages users to explore the boundaries of their comfort zones. The exercise is built around several cultural dimensions as defined by Geert Hofstede and Edward T. Hall. It asks participants to identify with one of the extremes* on six different scales representing six different dimensions, then try out activities or tasks that represent the other extreme and are not necessarily comfortable to them. The activity can be used as an interactive and self-guided display, or it can be used in a training situation with space provided for facilitated reflection and discussion. While the original activity is in English, all the documents are able to be edited and transformed into other language versions. We invite you to make your own language version using the templates provided and share them with others who are interested in working across cultural differences.*For the purpose of this exercise, participants are asked to pick one of the extremes on the dimensions scales; the authors acknowledge that reality is much more complex.

If you answered yes, then this training is for you: Summer Academy on Sustainability from an Intercultural Perspective in Istanbul, Turkey, from 22 July – 2 August, 2013.

Different ideas about energy politics and the sustainable use of resources can easily lead to misunderstandings and conflicts. But the fact that cultural reasons may be behind these conflicts is not often taken in consideration. This Summer Academy, cooperatively organized by InterCultur (subsidiary of AFS Germany), Karlshochschule International University, AFS Turkey and Istanbul Kültür University, approaches these topics from an intercultural perspective.

The two week Summer Academy offers courses aimed at developing solutions for intercultural challenges in international energy politics and environmental ethics, among other ecological issues. A particularly interesting aspect of the Academy is the innovative combination of university lectures and practical workshops, as well as the cultural diversity of the group (participants from 15 different countries are expected). Participants will have the opportunity to gain immediate intercultural experiences and to network with people from all over the world. This is one of the things that make this and other Summer Academies such a memorable experience!

The Summer Academy is held in English and is open to anyone aged 18–35 with a demonstrable interest in the fields of sustainability and intercultural encounters, especially undergraduate students and young professionals. Participants can earn academic credits according to the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). We pleased that we will be able to award several full and partial scholarships to qualified applicants for the Academy (scholarship application deadline is on May 12, 2013).

Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact Barbara.Langholf@intercultur.de.

AFS is dedicated to providing intercultural learning opportunities to a wide range of audiences. This Summer Academy is just one way that AFS is extending its offerings into the community and academy fields. Contact your local AFS organization today to see what is happening near you!

To be a part of the 2013 SIT Photo Contest, you can submit your pictures here. You can also take a look at the winners of last year’s contest and get inspired by their stories by clicking here.

A specific e-learning opportunity for interculturalists is this webinar offered by Young SIETAR on social media: Interculturalist: From Social Media Users to Marketers. This webinar will be a synchronous session offered on 22 April, from 7 to 8 pm BST. There are also other interesting e-learning opportunities available on Coursera. We have picked some sessions in the area of education that might be appealing to you, but we recommend that you explore the site to see what matches your preferences:

• Inspiring Leadership throuch Emotional Intelligence
• Aboriginal Worldviews and Education
• Tecnologías de información y comunicación en educación (in Spanish)

Coursera is one of several educational endeavors to make higher education accessible through the web. Higher education institutions are also trying to make their courses more accessible through initiative like edX or Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s MIT OpenCourseWare. The purpose of these educational sites is to make more university-level content accessible and free of charge for people around the world.

We encourage you to sign up for at least one of these events and tell us what you think about the potential of e-learning in your educational experience and in learning from any corner of the world.

This document represents a milestone in the field because it conceptually brings together and synthesizes a multitude of terms and concepts related to Intercultural Competence and offers definitions to all of them. As a framework, it places and defines the area of work of Intercultural Competence in a globalized world in which everyone is impacted by intercultural exchanges and influences at some level and therefore acknowledges the need for everyone to be interculturally skilled. It describes some of which might be the next challenges for policymakers, civil and human rights activists, social justice and inclusion specialists, politicians, economics and health professionals, educators, etc., and offers definitions for 26 concepts that should be common vocabulary across fields that draw on Intercultural Competence.

More importantly, this framework also offers these definitions and concepts in a programmatic and operational plan and specific action steps to immediately target institutions and populations that can benefit by accessing Intercultural Competences:

• Clarifying Cultural Competences,
• Teaching Cultural Competences,
• Promoting Cultural Competences,
• Enacting Cultural Competences,
• Supporting Cultural Competences.

"The operational plan builds upon all these concepts, and so is depicted in the visual conceptualization as branches on the trunk of the tree. No match is intended between a specific branch and the theoretical concepts appearing closest to it – all concepts should be understood as having at least potential relevance at all operational steps."

This UNESCO document “Intercultural Competences: Conceptual and Operational Framework” is called to be a necessary reference in our intercultural work and in improving numerous areas of cultural diversity and rights studies, professional sectors, as well as education and development.

If you want to learn more about this document came to be, you can also read it in this entry on the blog of the Center for Intercultural Dialogue by its director Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz.

AFS Intercultural Programs is pleased to announce the January/February/March/April 2013 issue of AFS Intercultural Link Newsletter volume 4, issue 1 – Global Edition, which can be shared with everyone interested in learning more about intercultural education.

The AFS Intercultural Link News Magazine is the quarterly magazine on intercultural learning in the AFS Network. The magazine features content shared by the Intercultural Learning Work Group as well as other AFS Partners and guest writers, including information on trends in intercultural education, interviews with experts in the field and overviews of upcoming and previous conferences.

From http://www.inakoehler.de/ausstellung.html

When we talk about intercultural experiences of young people abroad, we focus primarily on the internal changes that are happening with the young individual. We can hear that “the young person has become a real adult”, “s/he is more mature”, “s/he has learned a new language” or that “s/he is now more prepared to face the reality of our globalized world”. A number of researchers have attempted to describe and interpret what is happening “inside” of the young person. But have you ever thought about what kind of change happens on the outside?

German photographer Ina Köhler posed this question after she saw how her own daughter changed after spending a year abroad. Her experience then motivated her to explore the topic through art, namely photography.

In her project, Ina aimed to capture the impact that a year abroad can show in a person’s face. She invited 30 high-school students from Berlin to pose for a portrait photography both before leaving for abroad as well as after returning home after a year. The collection of portraits was first displayed in her gallery in Berlin and it is now touring various schools in Germany. You can view sample of the portraits on her website or read a more detailed article about the exhibition.

Do you know about any other art projects inspired by intercultural exchange experience? Let us know!

Especially noteworthy are the National Qualified Trainers Workshops for five AFS organizations in the Southern Cone, Malaysia and Denmark, as well as the 3rd Annual Regional Events in the Asia-Pacific and Caribbean regions.

The Learning Program will also collaborate with like-minded organizations in intercultural training around the globe at the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication in Portland, Oregon, USA and the Summer Academy on Intercultural Experience in Karlsruhe, Germany.

For the latest updates on Learning Program events, check our website regularly or get in touch with us at LearningProgram@afs.org.