Dollar Street – Center for Intercultural Dialogue

Dollar Street is a carefully organized set of photographs and videos turned into a game and tool created by Anna Rosling Rönnlund of Gapminder. It can serve as one way to start intercultural dialogues, whether you have a diverse, international group of students, or a more homogeneous set.

“People in other cultures are often portrayed as scary or exotic.” Anna explains: “This has to change. We want to show how people really live. It seemed natural to use photos as data so people can see for themselves what life looks like on different income levels. Dollar Street lets you visit many, many homes all over the world. Without travelling.”

Dollar Street is a Gapminder project – free for anyone to use. Today the database features 457 families in 66 countries, with 43,969 photos and 8,065 videos and counting!

Dollar Street is “where country stereotypes fall apart.” 264 homes in 50 countries have been documented with 30,000+ photos, in order to show the reality of people’s lives, leaving assumptions behind. Sounds like a good way to start intercultural dialogues, no?

As explained on their site: “Dollar Street was invented by Anna Rosling Rönnlund at Gapminder. For 15 years she spent her workdays making global public data easier to understand and use. Over time her frustration grew: carefully selecting data to present it in colorful and moving charts made overall global trends and patterns easier to understand. But it did not make everyday life on different income levels understandable. Especially not in places far from home. “People in other cultures are often portrayed as scary or exotic.” Anna explains: “This has to change. We want to show how people really live. It seemed natural to use photos as data so people can see for themselves what life looks like on different income levels. Dollar Street lets you visit many, many homes all over the world. Without travelling.”

Dollar Street is designed to let everyone see “what life really looks like behind the income statistics” by “using photos as data.” There’s a TED Talk about it, if you want to learn more.