March, 2021 | The Jerusalem Intercultural Center

Israeli Forum for Employment Diversity

We’ve given lectures as part of the diversity management course of the Israeli Forum for Employment Diversity for several years. In the course, we present the JICC’s activities in cultural competency, and present relevant tools. The current course opened in January 2021, and includes 18 participants from leading organizations and companies in Israel, including the Israel Police, Strauss, Weizmann Institute, the electric company, Elbit, a large legal office, and more.

the course participants

This year, because of Covid, the course is taking place via Zoom. The first meeting (of the two we were invited to) took place on February 10 and was led by Dr. Rachely Ashwal and Orna Shani Golan, who are leading the Cultural Competency Desk at the JICC. We presented tools to help organizations improve their ability to include everyone, not through broad organizational activities, but through personal skills that each diversity manager should have: tools for effective work in the face of generalizations, and tools to deepen inter-cultural dialogue.

Dealing with generalization

The meeting ended with a simulation in which a manager had to address an employee’s request to take vacation on the Novi God holiday, after the organization had decided not to give vacations. The simulation engaged all in understanding the unique cultural aspects of this request. In the next meeting we’ll play the HoliGame, a unique tool we developed together with the Israeli Forum for Employment Diversity to deal with social and political tensions in an organization.

orna2021-03-30T16:09:21+00:00March 21st, 2021|Blog, Cultural Competence, Cultural Competence in the Workplace|

Cultural Competence in Academia

It’s no secret that Cultural Competence affects all areas of life – from healthcare, to welfare to businesses and academia. We’ve written here and here about our work with academic institutions.

Cultural Competency in Academia

Throughout Covid academic institutions have continued to hold class, online. And like many aspects of our everyday lives, post-secondary studies, as well as the online format, raise numerous inter-cultural and inter-identity issues, which cultural competence can help to address effectively. This year, we’ve been working with the Zefat Academic College, the Sapir Academic College in Ashkelon, Shenkar College – Engineering. Design. Art and Bar-Ilan University.

In February we led an online workshop for 20 participants, which dealt with issues such as culturally competent academic teaching, dealing with bias and stereotypes, cultural axes, adaptations that are necessary for different identities, and more.

In March we began a four-workshop series at Shenkar, and we’re scheduled to play the HoliGame in April with faculty and staff from Bar-Ilan University.

Here’s the Facebook post from our Dr. Rachely Ashwal from the meeting in February with Sapir Academic College:

And this trend will hopefully continue in the next months and years! The message of cultural competence in academics will spread to more campuses!

Naomi Roff2021-03-30T16:04:43+00:00March 20th, 2021|Blog, Cultural Competence, Cultural Competence in Academic Institutions|

Training the Trainers for the Man and Medicine Course

For the past several years the Hadassah – Hebrew University School of Medicine (located at Hadassah Hospital at Ein Kerem) operates a course called “Man and Medicine,” which seeks to give medical students tools and awareness about the meeting with the person behind the sickness, and to help the future doctor look not at the sickness to be treated, but at the person as well. Members of the JICC’s Cultural Competency desk have been lecturing in the course almost since its beginning. We lectured, operated simulations and played movies to help impart the principles of cultural competence. After a few years, the course structure was changed, and we trained the course instructors how to use our training videos and teach the principles themselves.

Talking about Stereotype

On March 10, 2021, an orientation meeting was held for 30 course teachers (each one works with 12 – 13 students), most of them senior physicians at Hadassah Hospital. We were asked to give them tools to guide the students they mentor. This included: reviewing cultural competency and its principles, reminding how to use the training videos, as well as tips of how to do this via Zoom, since most of the course is currently being held remotely. The training was led by Orna Shani Golan, Director of the JICC’s Cultural Competency Desk.

The two-hour training included how to deal with generalizations about different groups, such as: “Muslim women don’t get epidural shots,” or “Ethiopians don’t look you in the eyes,” or “Vegans are anti-vaxxers,” and more. The participants discussed the communication gaps that arise when there are cultural gaps. Overall, they understood how to teach their students how to have an inter-cultural dialogue understanding the patients’ point of view from a cultural standpoint.

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for its support of cultural competency in Jerusalem since its inception, and to the Hebrew University Faculty of Medicine – Hadassah Medical Center, for their long-time partnership.

orna2021-03-20T08:21:43+00:00March 17th, 2021|Blog, Cultural Competence, Cultural Competence in Health Services|

Cultural Competency with Division for the Advancement of Youth, Jaffa

We’ve written here. here, and here how Cultural Competency deals with inter-cultural communication, and how to ‘read’ the person sitting in front of you and ensure maximum communication.

It’s not always between cultures, it’s also sometimes between ages, and between different groups of people.

Ezadeen with Youth Center Director

Such was the case on March 9, 2020, when our Ezadeen Elsaad led a cultural competency workshop for the Division of Advancement of Youth in Jaffa. Ezadeen spoke with them about methods and skills to cope positively with diversity and how to create a sense of belonging even when they face differences between students and colleagues in their daily routine.

The discussion included how to engage the youth, and how to de-stigmatize the youth center and turn it into a place where youth would want to come. He also spoke about ways to listen to the youth and engage with them on an eye-to-eye level, in order to help them understand their own way forward.

Applying principles of cultural competency in everyday work with at-risk youth

Here’s a Facebook post (in Arabic) by the director of the Center for Youth at Risk:

This is part of our work with a number of offices of the Division for the Advancement of Youth throughout Israel. Stay tuned for more updates!

Naomi Roff2021-05-06T07:43:23+00:00March 16th, 2021|Blog, Cultural Competence, Cultural Competence in Government Institutions|

New Arabic-language Digital Tools to Fight Covid

We’ve been on the front lines helping to fight the spread of Covid in East Jerusalem for the past year, the first NGO ever invited to join a public command center that was set up together with the Jerusalem Municipality, the Ministry of Health, and the IDF’s Home Front Command, among others. At the same time, we actively set up and coordinated a Forum to Fight Covid in East Jerusalem, network of 150 Arab Palestinian civil society actors in East Jerusalem, representing some 80 organizations.

The new web site lists the updated numbers of cases in East Jerusalem

As a result of this work, an idea was raised to create a go-to web site that included all the possible information about Covid – healthcare information, where to go for testing, information vaccinations, information to counter fake news, and more.

This web site draws from official sources and authorities to ensure accuracy of information. Also critically important – the web site is considered an independent initiative. Official Israeli channels are often regarded with suspicion in East Jerusalem, so the fact that it is independent adds to the website’s legitimacy.

Updated testing information also listed

You can view the website here.

And the Facebook page here:

For example, here’s a post about vaccinations in the Shuafat Refugee Camp:

And another, a video by Jerusalemite doctors about the importance of the vaccine:

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation, the Russell Berrie Foundation, and the Leichtag Foundation for their emergency support of our efforts to stop the spread of Covid in East Jerusalem.

Naomi Roff2021-03-30T16:08:09+00:00March 14th, 2021|Blog, Cultural Competence in Health Services, Effective Activism, Palestinians/Arabs|