INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION INSTITUTE

For my practicum, I have traveled to Portland, Oregon to work with a non-profit organization called the Intercultural Communication Institute (ICI). This organization focuses on helping people learn how to work across cultural difference by providing the tools, and knowledge to help participants build skills necessary for them to effectively work in multicultural teams. The overall goal is to prepare participants to become positive role models and leaders within in their organization when working with people from a different demographic group.

The ICI provides workshop and other training to help people better understand how having people that are different within the organization could lead to more creative solutions to problems. This environment could be cultivated by the leaders, and team members if they are willing to do the work to learn and understand their fellow teammates. The ICI also conducts intercultural assessments, which is a tool that can help gauge where a team is at when it comes to working with cultural differences and debriefs them with the team members. After if the team decides that they want team building tools then that is something that can be provided to that team. 

During this experience, I learned about my own biases and prejudices but more importantly, I learned of some tools that would help me to grow from my faults and how to reformulate how I think and perceive people.

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