Intercultural Mediation

The Intercultural Mediator carries out mediation activities between immigrant citizens and local society, promoting, supporting and accompanying both parties:

• in removing cultural and linguistic barriers;
• in promoting a culture of hospitality and socio-economic integration in the area;
• in the knowledge and practice of the rights and duties in force in Italy, particularly in accessing and using public and private services.

The intercultural mediator collaborates with public and private organizations and institutions in the process of adapting the services offered to immigrant users and operates in all situations of communication and/or understanding difficulties between people of different cultures, in order to dispel misunderstandings or potential conflicts due to a different system of cultural codes and values.

The intercultural mediator knows the linguistic and cultural codes of the migrant population in question.

• The intercultural mediator and his fields of action
• Healthcare sector
• Socio-educational and cultural sector
• Security sector
• Public administration sector
• Business and self-employment sector

Characteristics

Intercultural mediation must be

• Creator

In the sense that one of its aims is to create new bonds between people or groups that did not exist before, bonds that benefit both parties involved.

• Renovator

It is to the extent that it allows for the improvement of the already existing links between the Parties to the Mediation, links that had deteriorated or loosened before the

conflict.

• Preventive

It's in the sense that it anticipates and predicts the conflict brewing between individuals or groups. Knowing where the conflict will arise is very important for a good mediator.

• Healing

Mediation is any time a Mediator intervenes when a conflict already exists and assists and helps people and groups find solutions, choosing ways out of the conflict.

What does it do?

The tasks of the intercultural mediator consist of the following activities:

• Analysis of the needs and resources of the Mediation beneficiary
• Information gathering about the nature of needs
• Development of pathways and intervention programs for access to the service system
• Immigrant user/services relationship orientation
• Provision of training/information interventions on territorial services and related procedures and regulations
• Assistance to the service operator in coding the expressed request
• Provision of training/information interventions to support social integration
• Understand and interpret language and meanings of communication in a foreign language
• Listening and communicating with others
• Identify and distinguish any problems due to the lived dimension and poor linguistic proficiency
• Decode and transmit verbal and non-verbal communication codes to the Parties involved in the communication process
• Provide elements of understanding the communication and relationship methods of different cultures
• Identify the obstacles that prevent effective communication
• Interpret the needs and requirements of the Parties
• Recognize the cultural, personal and professional characteristics of immigrants as resources to be enhanced in different contexts
• To transfer to the Parties elements of knowledge of the historical-cultural and social reality of Italy and Europe to the immigrant and to the Italian person that of the immigrant
• Explain the models and rules of public and private utility services
• Making immigrants aware of their rights and duties in relation to the social context of reference
• To convey to the service operator elements of knowledge of the culture that the immigrant is a bearer of
• Translate the individual's needs and resources into intervention programs