RED TRUNK PROJECT®
The Red Trunk Project is a cultural initiative based on the idea that children should learn to Respect Every Difference—the RED in Red Trunk. Our goal is to create a brighter, more inclusive future for all children, working to ensure that the next generation better understands their fellow citizens around the world—a simple yet powerful idea that’s more important than ever in the world we’re living in.
Red Trunk utilizes dozens of cultural artifacts (arts and crafts, clothing, currency musical instruments) and combines them with ‘mini-doc’ videos, booklets detailing the lives of children in the culture, along with a comprehensive, experiential lesson plan to create a deep and lasting cultural experience. The Red Trunk Project allows children to connect with distant parts of the world they might not ever have the opportunity to travel to themselves.
THE BASIC MECHANICS
The Red Trunk Project team—anthropologists, videographers, and photographers—travels the globe to work with schools and interview local children about their day-to-day experiences. The team captures the children’s stories with video and photography, and collects tangible, physical artifacts. This material is brought back, cataloged, edited and compiled, and then packed into a Red Trunk along with ethnography and a lesson plan. That trunk is then duplicated a hundred times, translated into different languages, and shipped all over the world so kids can explore the trunk’s contents and learn about a new culture.
In the first year, Red Trunk Project will focus on testing trunks filled with the culture of:
- Oaxaca, Mexico
Sponsors
Red Trunk is such a cool project!
– NICHOLAS KRISTOF
New York Times Op-Ed Columnist, Author and Activist.