In a trailblazing, television-first original series, The Swap follows what happens when 12 students and families from very different cultures, religions, and backgrounds are thrown into each other’s worlds.
Exploring whether a ground-breaking social experiment encompassing a school swap can make a real difference in breaking down social barriers and building greater acceptance, respect and understanding between diverse cultural communities, The Swap also observes the possibility of the experiment backfiring as cultures collide, with the potential for controversies to flare.
For everyone involved, The Swap marks the first time they’ve experienced being close to someone who sees the world in a completely different way.
It’s a huge leap into the unknown, with shocking, hilarious, poignant and moving results – culminating in an eye-opening and compelling exploration of how little we know about each other, and how very different – as well as similar – we really are.
Series One, Episode One:
Ali Kadri, the CEO of the Islamic College of Brisbane (ICB), is determined to break down the insularity between different communities, and help his students prepare for the wider world. But it’s taken him nearly a year to find a handful of families willing to volunteer for his experiment, and not all his teachers think that it’s a good idea.
Now, in the first stage of the experiment, six students and families from the Catholic all-boys school, Padua College, its Catholic sister school Mount Alvernia, and the secular state high school, Ferny Grove, leave their communities and cross the river, into the very different and far more multicultural world of south Brisbane, and the ICB.
