A project to bring together young Americans from different backgrounds is expected to become the first nationwide domestic exchange program in the United States - but the epidemic has created some major obstacles.
Eighteen-year-old Clarissa Coe lives in the Boston suburb of Wellesley, where the average home costs $ 1.5 million (£ 1.1 million).
Ben Martin, 18, also lives outside of Lake Charles, Louisiana, a town known for oil refiners and a major casino with a per capita income of less than $ 30,000 (21 21,800), and where two major hurricanes took dozens of lives last year and destroyed There were whole communities
Despite the reverse reforms around them - despite the epidemic - the two have become close friends over the past year, sometimes chatting in online hangouts until noon.
“We randomly post Snapchat videos, talking about being a teenager while Covid,” Coe said.
Martin added, "It's the kind of friendship I would have with someone on the side of the road."
The pair hope to allow the Covid-19 vaccine to see each other this summer.
“I really want to see the answer,” said Martin, who has never toured New England.
Co and Martin were brought together through the American Exchange Project (AIP), a new initiative working to connect young Americans from diverse - and individual - socio-economic backgrounds and regions across the American constellations of the country.
This is the brainchild of David McCullough, who spent four-and-a-half years ago driving from Boston to Cleveland to Texas and studying the effects of poverty on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
But his journey discovered something completely different for him: he learned from listening to American teenagers how they were growing in their own bubble, but they were deeply aware of the subject and they were eager to feel something else.
“Traveling across the country it was clear to me that lots of kids like them are growing up around kids like that, going into a remarkably similar future,” he said. "And the kids, almost on a normal level, realize it."
A year ago, this experience led him to set up the American Exchange Project to connect high school students with their peers - people with the opportunity to differentiate themselves from the rest of the country. He hopes it will become America's first nationwide domestic exchange initiative.
More than 175 students from 39 schools in 14 states have participated in the AP's online "hangout" so far. Meetings are held three or four times a week and involve a variety of everyday topics such as comparing each other to serious problems such as racism with Spotify list songs.
Once the epidemic subsides, students from the east and west coasts will travel to the south and midwest and, in contrast, take part in an activity that puts them at the heart of the host community.
"If you grew up in a big city, you're moving to a small town; rich kids are moving to disadvantaged areas," McCullo said. "The idea is to get you to a place that's just the opposite of where you're growing up."
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And while studying abroad has been a favorite and popular experience for students for decades, McCallu hopes his efforts will inspire young Americans to see their own country from another's point of view - and perhaps prevent the divisions that currently divide the country.
“The goal is for every school in America to be involved one day,” he says.
Nevertheless, the challenges are considerable.
Between wholesale travel restrictions and the global epidemic that ignited lockdowns, there is nothing bigger than starting an exchange program.
It’s “like opening a bar during a ban,” McCallu admits.
Another is connecting students from rural and disadvantaged communities, where unnecessary infrastructure such as poor internet access has overwhelmed teachers and school staff compared to last year.
Recent studies have highlighted how the epidemic has exacerbated the inequalities surrounding geography, race and poverty, resulting in children in poorer areas lagging behind the richer parts of the country.
Schools like Ben Martin's hometown of Louisiana State University have the distinction of being one of the most successful American football events in the country, with Louisiana having one of the lowest education rates in the United States.
In contrast, Massachusetts, where Co lives and it’s Eli’s home
That attitude changed when he and Co started getting to know each other while talking about college, friends, and fighting in the online, Hunger Games simulation game.
Co said he would initially exchange views with students in California and hoped to gain life experience on the West Coast through EP. Now, connected to Martin and heard early in the south, he thinks it’s a more interesting area to explore.
"When we learned about U.S. history and the South, I thought it would be more racist, not to be lied to. I had the idea that we had a 'and' they 'mentality. There are similarities that we forget, ”he says.
"And then there's food."
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McCullo said students from liberal backgrounds have seen center-level positions in the program over the past year, and others from conservative regions have been left out somewhat.
"But we think the kids don't have to worry about how the program is being set up right now." "Zoom is now a kind of cafeteria table and like a cafeteria table, kids finally want to sit with their friends."
At a time when socio-political divisions in the United States were at an all-time high, perhaps worst portrayed by supporters of former President Donald Trump by the Capital blockade in Washington DC in January, McCallu believes that even efforts to unite a small party have never been more important. .
"One of the hardest things for us is not to take sides, and to show that we are in favor of all Americans, because of how tribal and divisive the culture is now, and how fast people are quick to identify one side or the other," he said.
Nevertheless, the appetite for students to learn more about their new friends and their country has consistently been a positive result of the project.
“After we met with them, we could see that they were just as enthusiastic about the idea,” McCullo said.
"Our hope is that the kids are really itching to travel for more than a year of being at a social distance."
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