THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL STORY SWAP: CONNECTING STUDENTS IN NEW ORLEANS AND PORT-AU-PRINCE

All Story Swaps begin the same way…Tell me something about you. Tell me a story so compelling that after hearing it, I’ll know you better. Then, I’ll take your story and recreate it as if it were my own. It’s a most elemental start to an exercise that produces results as starkly different and personal as the voices and lives being shared.

From April 19 - 23, 2010, the Aspen Writer's Foundation Story Swap field teams worked at Cours Prive Edme in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and Sci Academy in New Orleans, LA. Story Swap literacy teachers, videographers and field producers introduced the high schoolers in each location to one another, facilitated the process and documented the project through film and print. Global Nomads Group, an international NGO that creates interactive educational programs about global issues for students around the world, provided videoconferencing for both locations.

Imagination is at the heart of this project and allows participants to see the potential for change within their daily lives and to envision solutions and possibilities for development, unify diverse socioeconomic and cultural groups, and hope for a better future. Students share stories of family, landscape and emotional experiences that broaden their perception of the world and their surroundings. This cross-cultural storytelling exchange breaks down isolation, increases interaction, raises awareness and encourages compassion. The Port-au-Prince / New Orleans Story Swap project was designed to help strengthen and, in this case, restore individuals, schools and communities.

Story Swap is an Aspen Writers' foundation project, supported by the Bezos Family Foundation and showcased on Students Rebuild.