Dear friends of My Country Talks,

Welcome to the first edition of our newsletter. These monthly updates will give you an overview of current MCT events and feature interviews and interesting stories from the world of political dialogue. Feel free to forward this newsletter - anyone can subscribe here.

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My Country Talks is an international platform for political debate. Our software matches political opposites for 1:1 conversations. Since 2017, about 170.000 people from more than 30 countries have signed up to have a discussion with someone who thinks totally different from them.

My Country Talks events in June

America Talks - MCT goes transatlantic

The first nation-wide MCT event in the USA took place on June 12 and 13th kicking off the National Week of Conversation. My Country Talks partnered with USA Today and the Gannett Network to organise America Talks, along with several other media and civil society groups. Nearly 6,000 participants signed up for the event.

David Broockman is a professor of political science at UCLA who specialises in polarisation and prejudice and is conducting a study on the impact of the America Talks event. We spoke to him about the possible impact of the event, the state of politics in America today, and whether there is a path toward common ground for Americans. 

"Polarization is rooted in our political system." An interview with David Broockman

Britain Talks 

The second edition of Britain Talks took place on June 19th, as part of the annual Great Get Together. Britain Talks is organised by The Daily Mirror, in cooperation with the British newspaper Express. This year, over 9,000 participants signed up to meet their political opposite over a “virtual cup of tea.”

Britain Talks was started by The Daily Mirror editor Ros Wynn-Jones in memory of her friend, British MP Jo Cox, who was killed by a right-wing extremist in 2016. We spoke to Ros about her motivation to organize Britain Talks and the state of political discourse in the UK after Brexit. 

Uniting a divided Britain, one conversation at a time: an interview with Ros Wynn-Jones

Deutschland spricht 2021

The fifth annual edition of our flagship program Deutschland spricht (Germany Talks) launched on May 5th. This year, ZEIT ONLINE has opened the joint call for participants with five other media German partners: FAZ, Freie Presse, Handelsblatt, NDR and Stern.

With this year’s edition of Deutschland spricht 2021 we launched our brand new Rolling System, which will match participants continuously until the German federal election on September 26. Over 15,000 participants have already registered, and nearly 2,500 conversations have already taken place. 

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New programs

Youth Talks in Ukraine

Youth Talks («Молодь говорить»), took place on May 15th in Ukraine. The event was organised by UNITY, a nonprofit organisation focused on engaging youth in Ukraine with politics. Over 1,000 participants from 18-35 registered for the event. Participants discussed issues such as gender equality and whether Ukraine should join NATO. Youth Talks was the first My Community Talks event, our new format which empowers nonprofits, associations and institutions to engage their community in dialogue. 

Marburg / Mannheim spricht 

We also launched another new series, My City Talks, which engages municipal governments to organise local events for their residents. Marburg spricht and Mannheim spricht, in the German cities of Marburg and Mannheim, are testing the new model this month. The city governments work together with local media and other institutions such as universities to recruit participants for one-on-one conversations.