Kizuna Across Cultures

Kizuna Across Cultures facilitated the six month bilingual and virtual exchange program Global Classmates for high school students across Japan and the U.S. from September 2024 to February 2025. Since 2011 Global Classmates has connected over 20,600 students from the U.S. and Japan. In the programs 13th year we connected 2,100 students from 79 high schools in Japan and the U.S.. We successfully delivered another year of high-quality collaborative online international learning experience as reflected in the exit survey with 97% of the students and 99% of the teachers reporting satisfaction with the program. Building on last years curriculum upgrade this year we continued to emphasize not just improving language skills and cultural understanding but also on fostering intercultural competence-the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately with people from different backgrounds build meaningful relationships and collaborate across cultures. This year many school pairs conducted live video exchanges more than once during the program. These real-time conversations significantly deepened students sense of connection with their peers which in turn sparked greater enthusiasm for the regular asynchronous exchanges written exchanges with time difference. This positive cycle created a strong mutually reinforcing impact on student engagement. In recent years generative AI technologies such as ChatGPT have made language translation significantly easier. However we believe there are still essential human abilities that AI cannot replace: the capacity to connect with people from different backgrounds build mutual understanding and develop trust. Students participating in the program shared reflections such as: No matter how different we are its important to keep talking while respecting each other When you engage with genuine curiosity its possible to build meaningful relationships and Its crucial to communicate with an understanding of different values. These comments show that through their experiences students developed both the mindset and skills needed to build relationships and collaborate with people from different cultures and backgrounds. At KAC our goal has never been just about language acquisition. Instead weve continued to evolve the Global Classmate program to help students see and connect with the broader world and the future that lie beyond language. That said bringing this vision to life in real classrooms requires steady effort and thoughtful innovation. We are grateful for the teachers who have shared our vision and worked alongside us to make this program possible. We believe that the experiences and lessons students gained through Global Classmate will reach far beyond U.S.-Japan relations and prove valuable across many areas of their future lives. This program has offered students with a meaningful first step and we sincerely hope they will carry what theyve learned here forward with confidence and a sense of purpose.

The Global Classmates Summit is a summer program facilitated by Kizuna Across Cultures KAC that brings together Japanese and American high school students who hold the potential to influence and lead in diverse communities in the future. Through a wide variety of activities the students deepen their understanding of one another and develop friendships while fostering their skills to promote mutual understanding and cooperation between Japan and the U.S. as well as the broader international community. In its eighth year Kizuna Across Cultures selected sixteen outstanding students eight from the U.S. and eight from Japanfrom a pool of 2,190 students who participated in the 2023-24 Global Classmates virtual program. To reflect the increasingly diverse areas of cooperation between Japan and the U.S. we aimed to form a group of participants that are rich in diversity in terms of attributes strengths and fields of interest. Since the Summits launch in 2017 until the third year it was held as an in-person event in Washington DC; however due to the global pandemic it has been a virtual program since 2020. For this years Summit students met for three to four hours a day over the course of twelve days from late July to mid-August for online activities. The students participated in various activities including team building exercises meetings with leaders in U.S.-Japan relations and workshops led by international experts. Through these experiences they broadened their perspectives and deepened their knowledge on topics including cross-cultural understanding U.S.-Japan relations international business climate change diversity and cultural competence media literacy and the role of citizen diplomacy. At the Summit in addition to learning from mentors we place great value on fostering a peer learning community where students can learn from each other. By providing positive feedback to one another making valuable contributions in discussions stepping out of their comfort zones to be the first to share their opinions and feelings and encouraging others to participate they developed skills and mindsets essential for cross-cultural collaboration. During the webinar event on the final day one high school teacher who observed their students presentation remarked I was shocked by their growth in such a short period. With hopes that this Summit will serve as a stepping stone for them to emerge as the next generation of leaders KAC looks forward to continuing our support for these new members of theSummit alumni network.