Letters Home from Brazil Reveal the Importance of Cross-Border Friendships

Following last year’s popular campaign ‘The DNA Journey’ from momondo.co.uk, the online travel portal is back with another project that’s all about bringing people from all over the world together. Whereas last year's outing confronted adults about their genetic heritage, thus encouraging them to question their deeply held prejudices, this time around they're turning their attention to the younger generation.

A global survey from momondo.co.uk shows younger generations have less trust in other people than older generations. Therefore, momondo is launching a new initiative, designed to foster tolerance between children all over the world. In a new film, momondo shows what happens when children from different places spend a month together.

Children from different corners of the world met up earlier this year at a school camp in São Paolo, Brazil, where they spent a month together. The curriculum was tolerance and friendship. The kids were there to learn how to be more open-minded and had the opportunity to create new friendships across country borders.

The school camp, headed up by the organisation CISV International, was sponsored by hotel and travel search site momondo. It is part of momondo’s new initiative, which is designed to increase tolerance and respect within the next generation. The initiative is part of momondo’s Lets Open Our World campaign, which last year saw the release of the campaign film The DNA Journey.

“Children are our future. This is why we are launching this new initiative, which hopefully helps the next generation to be more open-minded. This initiative builds on our vision of breaking down boundaries between people and creating a more open and tolerant world,” states Neil Cartwright, momondo’s UK spokesperson.

The initiative builds on insights from momondo’s global survey, which shows that only 36 % of young people between 18 to 35 years have trust in other people. In comparison, this belief applies to 40 % of the 36 to 55 year-olds and to 50 % of the 56 to 65 year olds.

At the same time, the survey concludes that travel can help break down prejudice and change how we see other people. For example, 61 % of respondents believe that there would be less intolerance if people travelled more.

The children were asked to write down their emotions on a postcard to their parents at the beginning of the camp and then again two weeks later. In the postcards, the kids wrote about how their views of the other children’s differences changed during their stay. momondo collected excerpts from the children’s postcards in “Dear mom and dad”, a short film showing the children’s positive development.

“Our survey shows that 70% of respondents believe, tolerance and respect for others are among the most important qualities children can learn from home. This is why it is very uplifting to hear the children from the CISV camp tell how the experience of meeting and spending time together with other children from all over the world gave them a better understanding of other nationalities and cultures,” comments Neil Cartwright.

To help spread the message, momondo and CISV have developed educational activities designed to help children understand the importance of mutual tolerance and respect. The educational activities “Equally Different” and “Our colourful World” teach children how easy it is to apply and remove labels and stereotypes. Momondo has created an activity sheet, a curriculum and supplementary short films, which illustrate the importance of openness.