Consistent with our commitment to building bridges between the people of Uzbekistan and the USA, in 2018, as AUA’s first practical initiative, we decided to time-travel back to our childhood when we started learning English in Uzbekistan. Pre-internet era version of e-mail, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Telegram-based international communications among school children were postcard messaging with their peers abroad as pen pals. It could be perceived an archaic style of communication for the current screen generation.

The AUA exposed the elementary school-age children living in the US and Uzbekistan to this “archaic” way of messaging between each other. Over forty school children of the Jamesville Elementary School (JES) in the state of New York and the school #7 named after Mukimi based in Karshi city, Uzbekistan exchanged postcards sharing about their interests, school life, culture, hobbies, and dreams. It was an interesting and new addition to the English language lessons of the Karshi school students. According to their English language teacher, who coordinated this pen pal initiative from Uzbekistan side, the students impatiently waited for the subsequent rounds of the postcard exchanges with their American pals. During the recesses, they showed the postcards to their friends from other classes and proudly called their American pen pals as their American friends, according to the teacher. The AUA will resume the pen pal initiative which was paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic imposed mailing restrictions between the US and Uzbekistan.