My students and I participated in Global Nomads Group’s Youth Talk program in Amman, Jordan. Even in the first video conference I felt the students change as they understood that the United States is not only as it is depicted in the media. The students’ questions about the American community became deeper and so did the Americans’ questions to us.

The students had to show their points of view and build their perspectives respectfully and mindfully. As the program continued, the students were better able to express themselves in English and defend their opinions more strongly. …

I hadn’t gone to school in over a year and was living in the slums of Port Au Prince, Haiti. But I was also involved with an art collective called Atis Rezistans, working on a project called Tele Ghetto, where we used a fake camera and microphone to interview people in our community about their lives after the 2010 earthquake. Global Nomads Group partnered with us to make quality videos about subjects the outside world wanted to hear. In exchange, they invested in my education and I was able to go back to school.

Over the months, my connection with…

I remember feeling isolated growing up where I did. It felt like a very insular world, especially for me. I had always felt like an outlier, wanting more out of life. The prospect of an instant connection to someone living in a place I couldn’t visit was so exciting — I was desperate for an expanded way of thinking.

As a class, Global Nomads Group connected us to a classroom in Iraq soon after 9/11. I instantly found that the Iraqi students were just like me and my classmates — we had so much in common. But more importantly, hearing…

When I first joined Global Nomads Group’s program, I was quite intimidated — I remember feeling really nervous on the first day and was not sure what to expect. Since I was young, I had always been really shy and struggled with confidence and expressing myself, especially in big groups. I also had a lot of stereotypes about other countries. But Global Nomads Group gave me space to learn, ask questions, and push myself. Over time, I could feel myself becoming stronger, more expressive, and more curious. When we worked on our projects with our peers, we were able to…

Fourteen years ago, I sat in my classroom in Connecticut, anxiously awaiting my first video call with a group of students in Iraq. With our two countries on the eve of war, I was feeling something more unsettling than the normal jitters you get when you meet someone new. At the time, I had no idea that the conversations I had that day would prepare me to one day inspire my own students to be curious, conscious, and empathetic.

I remember how nervous we were as a class that day given our preconceptions — but after the opportunity to connect…

I learned about Global Nomads Group’s Campfire program from one of my favorite teachers at school, Mr. Mahfoud. The program was just like a real campfire: we all sat together to tell stories and get to know one another. Once we got started, I had endless questions to ask my peers! I was connected with a girl named Rebecca living in New York. At first I asked about Halloween and Easter and she asked me about my religion and our music. We realized that the media had been giving us a bad and limited story about each other’s cultures and…

I have witnessed my students struggle against confining stereotypes. We live in a south L.A. neighborhood historically associated with crime and poverty, where so many young people lack any opportunity to meaningfully interact with people from different backgrounds. This reality made it even more important for me to expose my classes to cultural diversity, social discussion in other parts of the world, and empower them to address problems right here at home.

When I found Global Nomads Group’s Reimagine Syria project, it seemed like a perfect place to start. Through the program my students participated in a virtual reality lab…

As a high school social studies teacher in rural Eastern Kentucky, I have always looked for opportunities to enrich my instruction on world cultures — to make lessons come alive for my students with real-life examples. In our community, Mason County — which is still one of the most diverse regions in the eastern part of the state — only 10 percent of youth are from different cultures. This makes it hard for my class to have opportunities to learn from and build relationships with peers from other backgrounds.

In 2016, determined to expand the walls of my classroom, I…