About The Project

Games for Peace’s Play2Talk school programme uses the popular game Minecraft to reduce stereotypes and prejudice between Jewish and Arab schoolchildren in Israeli schools. In the programme, children from a pair of Jewish and Arab schools meet on a weekly basis and play Minecraft together, from their schools’ computer rooms. Rather than having one school play against the other, the children are divided into two teams – Red team and Blue team, each mixed between the two schools. The children are presented with a set of challenges that require increasing levels of cooperation and collaboration.

Minecraft’s chat system has been integrated with an automatic online translation service to overcome the language barrier, allowing the children to take the interaction to a personal level. Finally, twice throughout the program the children meet face to face and discover the real people behind the Avatars – a powerful and personal experience.

To date, over 1000 students have graduated from the programme. A recent evaluation study showed that graduates maintain a clear positive change in their perception of the other and in their willingness to interact following the programme. Slowly, Play2Talk is making a change in the delicate fabric of Israeli society.