The timeless truth is that everyone on this planet shares the same human traits – such as core emotions, the need for a sense of belonging, a keen awareness of family and tradition – irrespective of age, gender, or nationality. By tapping into those traits, people deeply divided by history, circumstance and beliefs can come together, recognize themselves in each other, and live together more harmoniously by engaging one another in the discovery of what they have in common rather than what makes them different.
The second belief is that an historically unique revolution in connectivity is underway around the globe. The global community is currently reconstituting itself in the digital realm through the Internet, social networks, real-time communication and mobile smart phones. InterCulture believes this presents an unprecedented opportunity to employ this digital technology to foster understanding, connection and compassion through personal engagement and cultural cross-pollination.
FIRST BELIEF
It is natural for people to embrace their own "culture" when creating a context in which they choose to live: homes, rituals and customs, all supporting their chosen identity. Culture imposes a well-defined "order" to the "living" process. So much so that when people feel challenged or threatened by alien cultures, it is natural for them to ardently defend their identity and traditions. While "traditional" values (focused on cultural order) remain important, it is also natural for people, today, to desire the freedom to be influenced by different cultural values, and thus create a different context that more accurately defines who they want to be.
The most critical conflicts in the world today are rooted in these different concepts of "order": one imposed by authority and sustained through cultural tradition and habit and the other, an "order" chosen freely through conscious engagement with people from different cultures. When people engage with one another–regardless of their cultural backgrounds–they connect around essential qualities that define them as human beings. Through engagement comes mutual understanding; then tolerance, and, sometimes, even acceptance. Differences that once seemed important disappear, and new possibilities pertaining to how people would like to live emerge, opening opportunities for new personal relationships and rich cultural diversity, as well as unprecedented economic, social, and political progress.
SECOND BELIEF
The bridge between a culture based on habit and a culture resulting from engagement is "communication". Through communication, engagement is possible, and differences between people evaporate. Being able to communicate calms the urgency to attack whatever is perceived as "different" and creates the potential for positive connection. With connection we see the world through the lens of a shared humanity, and as "commonalities" replace "differences" in relationships, people are empowered to use their combined strength to re-imagine, re-build and recreate their world.
Without communication, the peaceful co-existence among peoples is impossible.
InterCulture’s purpose, role and focused expertise are to promote connection over isolation, and a freely chosen "culture through engagement" in place of a "culture imposed by habit".
It is InterCulture’s intention to create spaces where every person may work, grow and live in harmony; that "between" space that allows people to tell their stories so that cultures, mindsets and hearts can come together.
