Internship Blog post #2

As one can imagine, working in an international environment presents a full dosage of multiculturalism. Just this week I experienced one of the best examples of multiculturalism. At the office I intern with, Oxfam Italia, they are in the process of planning a massive, multinational event called Walk the Global Walk that we will host in May of 2019. This event serves as the culmination of all of the work Oxfam Italia and its partners will be doing throughout the 2018-2019 school year. This work includes training teachers how to teach concepts from the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The three SDGs that we are focusing on deal with human rights, urban safety, and environmental protection in the classroom. Taking it a step further, Oxfam is working with student leaders in school across Europe for them to become ‘peer leaders’ so that they can in turn teach their fellow students these principles which we believe is an even more effective method. At the end of this upcoming school year will be the event we began planning this week, “Walk the Global Walk.’ Students from across Europe will come to Florence and participate in a day-long event that includes marching for human rights, listening to inspiring speakers and celebrating all of the hard work they have accomplished over the past school year.

To commence this gigantic task, Oxfam hosted a three day conference in Florence this week. Delegations from over 11 different countries were present at the conference: Representatives from the departments of Education in Scotland, France, and Portugal as well as members from the Tuscan regional office and even a mayor from a city in Albania! On the day that I was able to attend the conference, we began with introductions and getting to know you activities. We first did a bingo activity to test the participants knowledge on the UN SDGs. We then did a speed dating activity so that the different delegations could get to know one another. After a lovely lunch, we had a guest speaker from the European Union Commission give a presentation on how to measure success of social change. Since it is an abstract concept that does not necessarily have concrete results, I found it very helpful.

People in all cultures use various idiomatic phrases to express certain feelings. When learning a new language this can throw off the amateur language learning, especially in the work place. Take for example in English, if one of your coworkers says “break a leg” before going into an important presentation and you had never heard the saying before, it could come across as a bad omen or possibly even a threat. As in English, the Italian language is filled with these idioms that make perfect sense to native speakers, but for the novice translating everything literally would be confused. One that I have heard in both at work in the Annex and at my internship is “o-bere-o-affugare” which translates to “either drink or drown.” I have heard used in the context of learning languages to mean that it is best just to jump right into learning the language. When you submerge yourself in the language you either drink it up and catch on or you drown trying. It is similar to the English expression “sink or swim.” Although I have usually only heard it in the context of language learning, I think it is definitely applicable to working in a multicultural environment. With so many different world views and unfamiliar social norms represented in one work space, diving right into the melting pot will prove the best results.