Contacts
The Intercultural Mediator.
The Intercultural Mediator facilitates exchanges between people of different socio-cultural backgrounds and acts as a bridge between immigrants and national and local associations, health organizations, services and offices in order to foster integration of every single individual.
Our society is becoming more and more multi-ethnic and
multicultural. With the passing of time, relationships between
different cultures are becoming increasingly frequent, both within
the family circles and in society on the whole. Immigrants bring
customs, values and traditions with them that must be respected.
Just to make an example a Muslim woman immigrant would rather see a
woman doctor, not to mention the gynaecologist! The same goes for
food customs or language comprehension, since a misinterpretation
could cause a discriminating behaviour. While lack of understanding
or bad manners can cause conflicts and disputes of a cultural and
religious nature, sharing intercultural models can represent a big
resource aiming to the creation of new “communities” built for
people coming from any country where harmony and cooperation join
together.
For all these reasons, it is more and more important to find
appropriate instruments to encourage the settling of immigrants in
society and not their assimilation. It is as much important to
spread information about different cultures in order to help all
those people who have difficulties in welcoming immigrants and in
sharing their culture .
The figure of the intercultural mediator originates from the need to
reconcile different interests and to safeguard some cultural and
religious values as well as some distinctive characteristics of the
many immigrant communities living in Italy.
All those actions offending women human rights, cheering violence
and discrimination must be changed and directed towards the respect
for human dignity, human rights and the respect for fundamental
freedoms.
An intercultural mediator needs a wide and deep social,
historical and cultural knowledge as well as mediation and
reconciliation techniques and skills. Today this figure has an
instrumental role in the socio-cultural integration of immigrants
and it is not possible to ignore its social utility in the complex
phenomenon of immigration.
The mediator is a specialist who has to know all about immigration,
intercultural pedagogy and human rights and who needs to keep always
up to date.
The following are some of the fundamental requisites of intercultural mediators:
- a good command of their language and at least of another foreign language;
- a good knowledge of history, culture and religion of their country and of the immigrants’ countries of origin;
- a basic knowledge of the laws of their country;
- skills of mediation and patience;
- quickness of mind;
- solid learning and knowledge of communication processes;
- admittance to the community services to get the most important papers.
The most important public utilities and services where the
presence of an intercultural mediator is essential are:
Hospitals, prisons, local education superintendencies, to facilitate
the settling of immigrant students in schools, social services,
courts of law, immigrant reception centres, information and
consulting centres.
