Intercultural COMmunication

    We believe that, in order to develop a successful social intervention, it will be really important to redouble our efforts for an effective intercultural communication. 

    First of all, we, as members and collaborators of the NGDO, will have to get a sufficient knowledge of the area and the social group that are going to be the object of our intervention, to minimize the possible communicative dysfunctions caused by the ignorance of local customs.

    With this purpose, it would be very interesting to organize trips to the zone before the beginning of the project, allowing us to apprehend personally the reality of the situation in that zone. Another initiative to be considered will be that every aid worker and volunteer of the NGDO participating on the project take part in a training process, with a part dedicated to communicative specificities, that is held, at least partially, on-the-spot, combining theoretical and practical learning.

    Furthermore, it'll be fundamental an adequate selection of the counterpart, so its members can guide us in situations of confusion originated by unknowledge of certain communicative behaviours or, in case of need, interpret conversations in languages and dialects we don't master. 

 Besides that, we must favour the most suitable conditions to get an effective intercultural communication between different groups of the same community. Let us remind that the main goals of reCOMciliation are promoting community development and post-conflict reconciliation, in situations where usually coincide phenomena of group exclusion based, for example, on ethnic, religious or gender criteria. Even though this cultural gaps between subgroups can sometimes seem, from our point of view, not so important, it is not convenient to minusvalorate their importance on the interpersonal relations that take place on-the-spot.

   We can work in some ways to reach this objective, such as:

- Establishing a common working language, that must not be taken as an imposition by any of the counterparts. In case it's impossible, we will value the option of incorporating mediators who also do functions of translation and interpretation (they will have to be accepted by all the participants).

- Organizing speeches, reunions and, in general, any kind of meetings where representatives of every subgroup can expose their points of view (and even their ways of life), promoting a better intercultural understanding (knowledge of both the own culture and the culture of "the others") and the gradual giving up of certain prejudices and stereotypes that determine human relations.

Presentation

Motivation

The human being is a social animal, who requires interaction with other individuals to attain its full personal development. Dialogue with other people allows us to exchange information, enriching, not only the participants in the conversation, but also the society as a whole.

Besides these direct interpersonal contacts, modern societies have a powerful tool for information transmission and exchange: the media. They are considered by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) as "key instruments to promote dialogue, mutual understanding, auto-expression, peace and reconciliation". Furthermore, they allow us to attend specific aspects of human relations, such as promotion and conservation of the local cultural and language diversity, integration of disadvantaged social and ethnic groups, incorporation of youngsters to the labour market, recognition of gender equality, etc.

To be able to perform their functions correctly, the freedom of expression of the media must be meticulously respected, because only like this it will be possible to reach the levels of objectivity and representation that the treated information needs to be accepted as valid by all the population. And this requirement is specially important in conflict and post-conflict situations, due to the necessity of understanding in a context of distortion and manipulation of information.

Unfortunately, freedom of expression is not always a reality, due to a wide range of problems. Sometimes, for example, some social or ethnic groups are banned from accessing to the media. Other times, it's the lack of resources and an insufficient or inadequate educative offer in the community what limits the capacity of the citizens to express their ideas and opinions as they would like to.

Goals

In order to try to surpass these obstacles, a group of engaged people decided to constitute reCOMciliation, that will adopt the form of Non-Gouvernamental Development Organization (NGDO), with the purpose of promoting community development and post-conflict reconciliation through the creation and support to participatory and inclusive local media.


Always in relation with the previous general goal, we will also work on other secondary and complementary goals, such as fomenting real gender equality, facilitating the incorporation of youngsters to the labour market, etc.

Localization

The headquarters of reCOMciliation will be located in Spain, but its vocation is to constitute national committees in as many nations as possible.


Social intervention projects will take place:

• In developing countries and countries where there was a recent conflict (generally an armed one). In this case, the organization will focus its projects mainly in Africa and Latin America, due to the special incidence on those territories of the aforementioned situations, and also to the existence of common historical and cultural characteristics.

• In developed countries. More specifically, on those countries where a national committee of the NGDO had been created. We will plan campaigns to raise public awareness, with adults, kids and teenagers, about the importance of the media in community development.