On September 16 and 23, OpenEmbassy organized OpenEmbassy three-hour workshops for future cultural mediators. It was an evening filled with stimulating conversations, interactive learning, and a delicious meal for everyone.
By: Jaime Hilditch and Victor Hemker
What is a cultural mediator?
Cultural mediators play an important role in OpenEmbassy research. They facilitate conversations with newcomers about their experiences with immigration and integration in the Netherlands, actively listening and creating a space where people feel safe, heard, and respected.
By building trust and leading thoughtful conversations, cultural mediators help participants share meaningful insights. At the same time, they take detailed notes to support research analyses, reports, and ultimately policy changes.
Description Cultural Mediator
A cultural mediator is someone who helps people from different cultures feel comfortable and supported. Cultural mediators are motivated, open-minded, respectful, and often have personal experience with migration or living between different cultural contexts. They have extensive knowledge of their own culture, may speak multiple languages, and often have ties to the same communities as the participants they support. They value improving processes, solving problems, and are ready for challenges. Ideally, they have been in the Netherlands for at least three years and understand how to navigate between different groups without judgment and involve everyone.
A good cultural mediator is calm, approachable, and able to actively listen to everyone. They summarize conversations clearly, collect and organize information, and can develop a plan of action if necessary. They handle conflicts sensitively, provide space for dialogue, and keep discussions structured. Curiosity, empathy, and strong communication skills help them bridge cultural differences and build trust. They do not judge or discriminate, but focus on creating understanding and helping newcomers and organizations learn from each other.
Effective learning through practice
The participants took part in a series of activities, including a role-play of an expert pool session. An expert pool is a research method in which participants are divided into small groups of four to six people who speak the same language. Each group answers the same set of research questions developed by researchers from OpenEmbassy partner municipalities. A cultural mediator leads the discussion in the group's native language.
Feedback from hosts
This practical, learning-by-doing approach gave future cultural mediators the opportunity to safely practice important skills, such as facilitating discussions, taking notes, and participating in a group. Useful feedback was provided during the process. The session gave participants a realistic picture of what an expert pool entails, allowing them to assess whether they would feel comfortable and interested in taking on this role in the future.
“The role-playing was really fun, especially to really understand what it means to be a cultural mediator.”
Key points
- A good cultural mediator is open-minded, respectful, and empathetic: they want to ensure that everyone is heard and feels comfortable sharing their experiences.
- Interactive activities such as role-playing were appreciated by the participants because they accelerate the learning process and support understanding of the role of cultural mediator.
- The workshop facilitators participated in the group activities, bringing teachers and students together. This made the participants feel more supported and at ease.
Growing group of cultural mediators
Organizing these two workshops contributes to OpenEmbassy ever-growing, high-quality group of cultural mediators. This group enables us to conduct our qualitative research in a truly diverse, difference-sensitive, and safe manner, building trust with the communities we work with.
Would you like to become a cultural mediator yourself? Or do you have any questions or comments about the article? Please contact Anna Bilenka.
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