Tag Archives: migration

Intercultural Competence at ITAM

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IMG_3558ITAM, the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, is a prestigious university in Mexico City, alma mater of many national leaders in diverse areas of society. They recently dedicated several days to learning in-depth about the complexities of the migrant experience, and the intercultural competence required to integrate new residents in meaningful ways to transform our communities.

I was privileged to be invited as a presenter by a student body leader. In the morning my good friend and I conducted the CARITAS France game that we recently translated to Spanish, On the Road with Migrants or, En el recorrido con los migrantes. Students were powerfully moved by the experience and I was blown away by the depth of insight they gained. Click on any photo to enlarge it or view a slideshow.

The game is downloadable for free in seven languages. Please take advantage of it as it’s a terrific learning resource!

In the afternoon I conducted a two-hour workshop using Cultural Detective Self Discovery and CD Mexico. Students attending passionately shared their experience and personal challenges, as well as gained new intercultural competence.

I came away from my day at ITAM so reassured to know that these young people are our future! We are in most definitely in good hands!

“On the Road with Migrants” Game

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IMG_3100World Refugee Day is June 20th, and I am honored to be able to share with you a powerful new game available free-of-charge to help raise awareness and understanding of the refugee and migrant experience.

Catherine Roignan, co-author of Cultural Detective Morocco, conducted the game at the recent SIETAR Europa conference in Valencia, and it was my favorite session of the conference. Many people in the room had tears running down their cheeks, and in the days following we found ourselves often talking about the experience we’d shared.

The game is called On the Road with Migrants, and it was created by Caritas France, the Association des Cités du Secours Catholique or ACSC. At the conference we had only a brief 15-20 minutes to play, but it was remarkable!

Groups of us gathered at tables with game boards showing different continents of the world, including Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. Each player had a pawn representing an immigrant, who was identified by name and story. We threw dice, drew cards and moved our pawns around the board according to the instructions on the cards and the dice.

Kudos to Caritas France for their brilliant work on this! It is a terrific game!

The materials are available for download free-of-charge; you print out the cards and boards, and add dice and pawns—1 die and 4 pawns (one color for each of four characters) per continent/board. Our SIETAR Europa group helped with the English translation—this is collaboration with a purpose!

Learn more and download the game in French, English, Portuguese or German: En route avec les migrants. I am leading a team that is translating the game into Spanish.

Please, share with us your resources and ideas for commemorating World Refugee Day and for building empathy for the migrant experience in this world of ours.

Migrants Moving History: Excellent Short Film

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Image from the Daily Mail

 

“Europe faces an interesting set of immigration challenges and opportunities: Demographic pressures as many European societies age, a lively and at times tense policy and political debate over questions of identity and immigrant integration, and a unique policy environment that has knit 28 European countries together with regards to the management of outer borders, asylum, and other immigration-related topics.”
—Migration Policy Institute

Do you know that Germany has become the world’s second-largest destination for migrants, according to the OECD? Are you interested in the migrant experience? Multicultural identity? Do you work with people in transition? Are you particularly concerned with the challenges surrounding the changing demographics in Europe?  Have you considered what a future might look like if we weren’t quite so limited by nation-state thinking?

Then you definitely want to watch this terrific 23-minute movie, Migrants Moving History: Narratives of diversity in Europe, made with Hauptstadtkulturfonds out of Berlin. Even if you have seen it before, it is well worth your while. Though it was first aired back in 2008, the interviewees’ reflections on where they “belong,” on “betweenness,” on the differences between cultural and linguistic identity, and the benefits of multiculturalism, are thought-provoking; the video serves as a great starting point for discussion.

As one interviewee says, “Everyone gains from multiculturalism. We need an open discussion about how societies can better facilitate that.” It got me to thinking: which societies in the world proudly define themselves as immigrant societies, as multicultural? How did they get there? And how can we get more members of more societies thinking and feeling that way?

Let us know how you use Cultural Detective to make the most of multiculturalism where you live or work!