AMNA NAWAZ: And now to the power of story in a divided world.

Recently, senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown reported on writer Colum McCann and his latest novel, "Twist."

Tonight, the focus is on an organization McCann co-founded to help young people around the world share their stories and perhaps bridge divides of politics and culture.

The piece is part of our series Art in Action, exploring the intersection of art and democracy, and part of our Canvas coverage.

STUDENT: I didn't know anybody.

Like, I was very shy and I felt very like out of place and like isolated.

JEFFREY BROWN: Tell me your story and I will say it back to you, becoming you, for a moment seeing the world as you do.

STUDENT: I have never been to a funeral for a kid before, and it was very strange and it affected everyone very deeply.

JEFFREY BROWN: It's called a story exchange, worked on by students in high schools around Santa Fe, New Mexico, over the course of several months in their individual schools and then brought together.

STUDENT: My name's Jocelyn (ph), and my story is about having -- also having a bad day.

STUDENT: It was just hurtful to see that my culture wasn't being respected and that these cultural objects were in display cases and just shops around Santa Fe for anyone to buy.

JEFFREY BROWN: Each writes a story, something personal from his or her life, and then gives it to another student, often someone they don't know and wouldn't have an opportunity to meet, who speaks it back in the first person.

Santa Fe High Senior Isabela Erazo-Lujan.

ISABELA ERAZO-LUJAN, Senior, Santa Fe High School: It allows for the other person to really understand that this person is a person, and I don't know who they are, but I know that I am sympathetic for them and I can relate to them in some way.

JEFFREY BROWN: Tristan Risi also a senior, wrote of periods of homelessness he experienced while in high school.

TRISTAN RISI, Senior, Santa Fe High School: In a way, I'm putting them in a bit of a difficult situation telling them such a personal story but I kind of see them as they're telling my story.

I guess kind of try to feel or understand what I was going through.

And just for me that's meant a lot to me.

JEFFREY BROWN: The story exchanges are the work of an organization called Narrative 4 co-founded by Colum McCann, who himself a renowned novelist whose books include the National Book Award-winning "Let the Great World Spin," knows something about the power of stories.

COLUM MCCANN, Co-Founder, Narrative 4: It's a form of what we call radical empathy.

It's a leap into the story of someone else, a sort of new form of understanding.

JEFFREY BROWN: Working with Narrative 4 CEO and co-founder Lisa Consiglio, then with students and teachers, McCann takes the power of story beyond the page and directly into both personal lives and very public social problems.

COLUM MCCANN: I see stories as that sort of - - as the essence of a possible democracy, in the sense that goes across borders, boundaries, and then we begin to step out of self and we begin to acknowledge other people.

What's interesting to me is that these stories are not didactic.

They're not necessarily political.

They're not trying to win an argument.

They're personal stories.

And this powerful engagement when you become me and I become you just for a short amount of time changes people's lives.

JEFFREY BROWN: Founded in 2013, Narrative 4's worked in 35 countries on four continents, including such hot spots as Israel and Palestine, South Africa and Northern Ireland, and in 124 cities in 47 states in the U.S., sometimes aiming to bridge differences of socioeconomic divides, geography, and culture.

For example, students from rural Kentucky shared stories with those from the South Bronx, other times tackling a specific issue, such as climate change, as these 50 youth leaders from around the world did in New York at this gathering last year.

A 10th anniversary celebration brought together participants from around the world, other leading writers, including Marlon James.

MARLON JAMES, Author: Empathy for the other may need sympathy to pave the way.

JEFFREY BROWN: And artists including Sting, who've taken part in and supported the work over the years.

(MUSIC) JEFFREY BROWN: Santa Fe is known for its beauty, Indian market, and other features that make it a tourist mecca.

But it's also rife with homelessness, disparities of wealth, and tensions around immigration, all reflected in the experiences and stories of students from different high schools in different parts of the city.

NINA BUNKER, Teacher, Santa Fe High School: Being part of a community where there's some really deep rifts and people don't hear each other, they don't see each other.

JEFFREY BROWN: Nina Bunker, a teacher at Santa Fe high, brought a group of her students to the Central Library to meet and share stories with young people from other schools.

NINA BUNKER: They would not talk to each other if it wasn't for this event.

JEFFREY BROWN: Really?

NINA BUNKER: Yes.

I mean, it's not that they wouldn't want to.

It's just the opportunity doesn't arise.

And then they may even want to.

I think they come to this event because they want to.

I can't think of a better way to get -- to really understand someone else's perspective than to tell their story.

JEFFREY BROWN: Sarah Weisberg teaches at a charter high school called The Masters Program to students for whom English is not their first language.

Tensions around immigration are strong, she says, but sometimes hard to discuss.

SARAH WEISBERG, Teacher, The MASTERS Program: It's kind of like this, like a pit of tar underneath our world or underneath our town that's there.

And we all know it's there and it's dangerous, but it's not - - it's just kind of like nipping at our toes.

JEFFREY BROWN: So do you have a sense that a Narrative 4-type exchange allows for a forum for some of that?

SARAH WEISBERG: I think it does because once -- you might have your own opinions about who should be here and who shouldn't.

But once you have to step into the body and tell the story of a person who has gone through that, it suddenly makes you feel like it's your story too.

And it's not just an experience, a terrible experience of somebody who's living in another place and you have no knowledge of.

JEFFREY BROWN: Students also told us of an unexpected benefit.

When someone else speaks your story, you learn something about yourself.

ISABELA ERAZO-LUJAN: It felt a bit empowering and it's very eye-opening and it makes me feel like, oh, like this interconnection between this person that I don't necessarily know that well.

And it makes me feel like -- and I'm able to be somebody I'm not, but also am.

JEFFREY BROWN: Somebody you're not, but really who you are.

ISABELA ERAZO-LUJAN: Yes.

JEFFREY BROWN: Yes.

TRISTAN RISI: I definitely think the story exchange has kind of put myself in perspective in a weird way.

JEFFREY BROWN: Put yourself to yourself?

TRISTAN RISI: To myself in a way.

Hearing other people tell my story, I feel like I can understand myself and see myself more as kind of part of a bigger picture, as opposed to in my own world, which I think, especially with the digital era, it's really hard to do that.

JEFFREY BROWN: And that last idea, part of what he sees as an epidemic of loneliness in a world of screens, is also hugely important to Colum McCann.

COLUM MCCANN: These are the most connected times and the most disconnected times, and they are experiencing that.

But if they get a chance to look somebody else in the eye and become part of their story, certainly, something flourishes in the brain.

The brain is a carnival.

But, also, I really believe that things change in their hearts as well.

JEFFREY BROWN: For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Jeffrey Brown in Santa Fe, New Mexico.