Melissa presents with SIETAR Italia

Melissa recaps her presentation with SIETAR Italia:

Grazie to everyone who joined us today for my webinar, “Culture in the community: Lessons from a dialogue program in Arizona.” I would like to especially thank SIETAR Italia for hosting this conversation, recognize Gradiola Kapaj for moderating the event, and extend my appreciation to our participants for their deep questions and engagement in the virtual session.

It was a joy to share my perspective and experiences from my home state of Arizona with the broader world, and I hope that the information and insights will prove useful and inspiring to others as they embark on similar projects. In this time of chaos and alarm - Italy is in a lockdown and the pandemic is nipping at our heals in the United States - it is heartening and gratifying to connect across cultures towards a common purpose.

From the SIETAR Italia website:

Interculturalists around the world have expressed alarm as our societies experience polarization and a breakdown in social connectivity and trust. After the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Melissa Hahn became motivated to deliver programs in her community to bring people together across political differences for the common good.One program that she co-designed and led in her city was an 8-week “Diversity Dialogue.”
In the dialogue program, approximately 15 community members from different cultural backgrounds came together once per week for 8 weeks to engage in deep and sometimes difficult conversations about challenging issues.

In this webinar, Melissa will briefly introduce the cultural characteristics of her city, the program’s structure and history, and the steps she took to establish a connection with her city government, under whose auspices the program operated. She will then outline the program’s guiding principles and objectives, the intercultural pedagogy, the intercultural dynamics among the co-facilitators, the intercultural representation among participants, the topics discussed, the intercultural growth experienced by participants, the challenges encountered, the successes achieved, and the lessons learned.She will also include a sample agenda of a typical dialogue session and provide tips for interculturalists who wish to pursue a similar program in their city. The webinar will be moderated by Gradiola Kapaj.