My Experience with The Experiment Digital

By Nicole Munoz ’22

The Experiment Digital Youth Leadership & Community Service program is a free virtual exchange program that connects young people in the United States with peers in the Middle East/ North Africa (MENA) region. The program is supported by the Stevens Initiative, which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, with funding provided by the U.S. government, and is administered by the Aspen Institute. It builds leadership skills, with the goal of having participants create and engage in service projects that address various needs in their own communities.

Dr. Kassandra Thompson Brenot ’87 sent an email to students with the information about The Experiment Digital summer program. I received it two or three nights before the deadline. Having just entered into lockdown for COVID-19, I was eager to find something to do over the summer to take my mind off the isolation and lack of personal connections that COVID had caused. I submitted my application the day it was due, frighteningly near the deadline. If I had known how life-changing this opportunity would be, I would have made it a priority.

I was accepted as a participant in The Experiment Digital 2020 in early June. The program took place from June 21 to August 15, 2020, and was conducted on a platform called Canvas. Having launched in 2016, The Experiment Digital had four years of online education experience and was well prepared to offer a virtual program. In fact, it allowed me to be better equipped when school began again at Santa Catalina in August. This was just one of the invaluable gifts that The Experiment Digital gave me, and I can safely say that the main reason I have been able to thrive in the learning environment online is that I had three months to make mistakes and struggle, alongside hundreds of other teens going through the exact same challenges.

The program was divided into neighborhoods of around 50 participants. Each neighborhood consisted of family groups with 8–10 participants. We met with our family groups once a week via Zoom to discuss different topics and the activities that we had been assigned to complete that week. Sam was in my family group, and we quickly became friends.

The first topic of discussion in our weekly breakout session was a challenge that we have had to overcome; the topic was a great icebreaker. We all quickly felt like family, and we began to open up to each other about our true struggles. I got to know Sam better, and he opened my eyes to strategies I can use to understand differences among people and to further my acceptance of others.

My friendships with members of my family group who lived in the MENA region opened my eyes to a whole new world. Throughout my life, it has been easy to insert myself into a bubble, thinking that my small town and my small world within it were the extent of this wide world. Although you learn in school about other countries and their histories, that education is not the same as interacting with the people of those countries, understanding who they truly are, the value of their own country to them, and learning about their lived experiences, which I realized vary considerably from my own. Often, the media portray other countries in a bad light, and I went into The Experiment Digital, for the most part, knowing only of the tragedies that these countries and their people were facing. I hadn’t known about things like the small bookshop with the old man who greets you every morning with “As-salamu alaykum,” meaning “Peace be upon you,” a girl from Yemen told me.

My first mission when I entered the program was to learn about “family members’” favorite memories or favorite places in their country. The answers gave me insight into the wonderful aspects of their countries, which were so much more than the hardships they faced. I met some wonderful people through my journey, including an amazing young woman who has known challenges unimaginable to Americans, due to her gender, but who has persevered every day and pursued opportunities through her community service project. I met young men and women who are inspired to make major change for their countries and communities because of the enthusiasm for active involvement instilled in us by The Experiment Digital.

My friendships with members of my family group who lived in the Middle East/North Africa region opened my eyes to a whole new world.

I have learned the power of listening, even when you can’t understand someone’s situation at all, in order to help the person’s change-making and to better your own community through empathy and compassion. I also learned that language is not a barrier to friendship, and I have maintained connections with eight participants from the United States, Algeria, Iraq, and Yemen, many of whom do not speak English fluently.

The greatest gift that The Experiment Digital has given me is the motivation, encouragement, and resources to create and launch my own organization, Positive I. With Positive I, I aim to develop an understanding of what makes us different, and the importance of who we are, through delving into the many facets that make up a person’s identity. Your identity is who you are. Society has categories for different aspects of our identity. The qualities of identity are both invisible and visible, changing and unchangeable. Understanding each aspect of your identity will allow you to find confidence in who you are and how to make your mark on the world, as only you can do. There are many social stigmas around certain aspects of identity, such as race, religion, sexual orientation, and gender. My goal is to help break barriers that society places in front of us in regard to certain facets of our identity, through understanding and accepting the value of our unique qualities. One day there will be no part of an individual’s identity that is not accepted and when speaking from the “I” perspective, it will only be positive, because we will be confident in who we are and the vitality of our differences, in shaping our identity.

Even though my journey with The Experiment Digital Youth Leadership & Community Service program has come to an end, it is not over. I continue to be involved through the Project Advisory circle, which helps guide like-minded peers in the same state in their community service project creation and implementation. Additionally, I was accepted in October to serve as an Alumni Ambassador. My roles include recruitment webinars, recording videos for The Experiment Digital, and working with their staff. Recently, I have had the great honor of being accepted for the position of Peer Mentor for the pilot program STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) Discovery Lab, where I will be leading the participants in the United States and Egypt in creating a STEAM–based community service project. The position was highly competitive, as is a spot in this program.

The Experiment Digital, as well as my fellow participants, taught me a level of empathy and understanding that I had yet to discover before the program. It taught me how to be a true leader, and, most important, how to make the change you want to see in the world because, chances are, no one will do it for you!

Check Out Positive I online: Instagram: @positive__i Website: www.positivei.org