Exchange for Change

CAPs latest program is Exchange for Change, an interactive initiative between school students of Pakistan and India.

Exchange for Change seeks to help students in both countries realize that a sustained dialogue is possible. Through this project we hope that students will have a clearer understanding of their shared history, culture and lifestyles. CAP believes that such interaction will in turn lead to a positive change in restructuring cultural misconceptions and intergenerational conflict.

During the 12-month life of this project, a continuous exchange of letters, postcards, photographs and oral histories will link 2400 school children from 10 schools across Pakistan and India. The material exchanged will aim to dispel misinformation about historical events, and encourage children to form their own opinions.

For this project, CAP is collaborating with Routes2Roots, an Indian non profit organization that has been working for peace and dialogue between Pakistan and India for a number of years. Schools from Pakistan participating in this project are City School, Ilm School, SMB Fatimah Jinnah Government School, Links School and Savings Group Schools. From India we have, Sanskriti, St. Pauls, Balwant Rai Mehta Vidya Bhavan School, Shushuvan and Gandhi Memorial. Media partners from Pakistan are Express Media Group, Radio 1 FM 91 and Kifayat Publishers while those from India are Hindustan Times Next, Zee News, Big FM and FM Rainbow.

The project will be spread over four phases detailed below:

• Letters to the Past: From January to March there will be two exchanges between India and Pakistan. The first exchange will contain letters of introduction and history. The second exchange will contain opinions about history.
• Postcard Series: April-May will mark the second phase of this interactive project where children will exchange postcards with self taken images portraying their individual surroundings in order to visually represent their lifestyles and neighborhoods.
• Photography Series: From September to mid-October Exchange for Change will present the third phase where children will exchange self taken photographs of historical locations from across Karachi, Lahore, Delhi and Mumbai in an endeavour to familiarize each other with the history of the city in which they reside
• Oral History DVDs: This phase will represent the culmination of Exchange for Chane from mid-October to November where school children will participate in open houses at their respective schools, where their parents and grandparents will narrate stories about Pakistani and Indian history. These stories will then be recorded and sent across.
• As a final step the children from each school will jointly put together scrapbooks of the information collected.