Dear friends of My Country Talks,

On June 25th, people from all over the world had a personal conversation with a total stranger on another continent. More than 3,000 people from 116 countries were matched with a conversation partner from the other side of the world to discuss global issues. Thank you to everyone who supported us and signed up! The World Talks was our first ever global dialogue event, and we’re excited to share the results with you.

Never miss an update from My Country Talks! Subscribe to our monthly newsletter.

The World Talks

To recap, The World Talks launched on May 15, together with partners from 15 countries. We were overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of our participants. Over the following four weeks, more than 5,100 people signed up to have a totally private, 1:1 conversation with someone in another country who thinks differently about the global issues that affect us all. 

Who took part?

The World Talks participants come from 116 countries and cover every continent - from Columbia to Uzbekistan, from Cameroon to Japan. From the 5,100 participants who registered we were able to find a suitable match for 3,084 from another country. The average age of participants was 42 years old, and 41% of the participants are women. The largest age gap between two participants is 70 years, between a 21-year-old in Germany and a 91-year-old in South Africa. Some matches coordinated their meeting with a 12 hour time difference or more.

Some participants were generous enough to share their stories with us, from 85-year-old Faith in South Africa who told us about her garden, to Serhii in Ukraine who dreams of visiting Melbourne when the war is over. Read their stories and many more on Instagram.

What did they talk about?

To sign up for The World Talks, participants had to answer eight Yes/No questions on a range of global issues. It was tricky to find questions that really affect the whole globe, but we narrowed it down to eight.

After answering these questions, we matched together participants who lived in different countries and had the most possible difference of opinions. The goal was for both partners to share their perspectives across borders, and understand how global issues have an impact around the world.

Read on

"There are no more what-next-pauses in the conversation between two women who live 8,000 kilometers apart. They talk like old friends whose lives have somehow missed each other."

Janicke, 56, is a museum director in Norway. Junaice, 30, works at a tourism company in Tanzania. Janicke and Junaice allowed journalists from DIE ZEI to sit in on their conversation as they discussed the eight registration questions, and shared stories from their lives. Although 26 years and 8,000km apart, they connected over many things - from their shared love of family to Norway’s midnight sun.

Read their story here

We also followed two other pairs as they had their conversations, Veta from Russia spoke with Anas from Qatar, and Renzo from Chile spoke with Ya-ting from Taiwan. Some of their conversations can be heard in the latest episode of the podcast Was Jetzt from ZEIT ONLINE. 

Listen here (partly in German)

What's next

The World Talks was our first ever global dialogue experiment. Working together with so many newsrooms from around the world was really inspiring, and we ourselves gained so many new perspectives. We hope that the participants of The World Talks feel the same way.