Inspired by a virtual exchange with Iraqi youth, Turner Payne launched a project that is shattering stereotypes

Sixteen-year-old Turner Payne didn’t know very much about the Middle East before summer 2017. Though he was interested in world events, Payne didn’t have much opportunity to learn about the region’s history or culture as a high school freshman in Maryland. What he knew about it was what he’d learned from social media and TV news stories, which portrayed the Middle East as a place of conflict full of terror attacks and refugees.

All that changed when Payne joined the Digital Young Leaders Exchange Program (DYLEP), a virtual exchange program implemented by World Learning that connects teenagers from the US and Iraq. In addition to getting to know peers from another country, it’s designed to help them develop leadership skills, while fostering civic engagement and respect for diversity. DYLEP is supported by the Stevens Initiative, which is sponsored by the US Department of State and administered by the Aspen Institute. The Initiative is an international effort to build global competence and career readiness skills for young people in the United States, the Middle East, and North Africa.

Payne spent almost every day of the four-month program chatting online with Iraqi teenagers — his virtual “family” — learning about their culture and sharing his experiences with them. “I learned through DYLEP about how rich the Middle East is and how many different cultures and religions it has,” Payne says. He was surprised to find out, too, how much he had in common with his Iraqi family. “We connected on a very personal level because we shared the same interests and values like the love of travel, learning different languages, watching sports, eating good meals, and hanging out with family and friends. And that’s something I didn’t think would [happen with] someone from such a different area than me.”

Now in his sophomore year at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, Payne is working to help other teens dispel misconceptions about the world. DYLEP participants are encouraged to launch projects addressing challenges in their communities, so Payne founded an initiative called Binding Borders. The digital cross-cultural project features video interviews with students from the Middle East and North Africa talking about how their cultures are perceived in the US. “My experience at DYLEP really opened my eyes to the many different stereotypes that existed in the US about the Middle East,” Payne says. “I wanted to come up with an idea that would address this problem.” He thought video interviews would be a powerful way to help American teens understand how their peers from the Middle East feel about how their culture is portrayed.

So far, these messages are helping. Payne says his peers who have watched the videos are surprised by what they’ve learned about Middle Eastern culture. “After they see these videos they have a moment where they realize, ‘yeah, I’ve been stereotyping Middle Eastern students,’” he says. “I hope that Binding Borders will help change that.” “I think it’s important for us to learn as much as we can about other cultures and world views,” he says. “And when it comes to the Middle East, we really have a long way to go.”

This story was written by Amy McKeever, writer/editor of World Learning. It was originally posted on the World Learning blog and shared on Digital Diplomacy.