October is Global Diversity Awareness Month – a time to celebrate and increase awareness for cultures and ethnicities around the world. Cultural awareness and understanding is a lifelong process that can help us respect and value the differences of others and even understand our own cultural influences better.
As an interpretation company, CyraCom is privileged to hire, partner with, and serve people from many different backgrounds. To celebrate the diversity of our interpreters and the limited-English-speaking people we serve, we’ve provided a few ways you can embrace cultural awareness in your daily life.
According to the Linguistic Society of America, there may be close to 7,000 languages spoken in the world today. Some languages are dwindling, with only a few speakers left, while others have millions of native speakers.
Many languages are available to learn online for free or for a low cost. Try out an online class or download an app to learn a new language, or to improve upon one you’ve already started learning.
Food is strongly linked to culture, so much so that one of the first pieces of advice given when visiting a new place is to try out the local cuisine. Even though traveling is less possible these days, you can still sample food from around the world with a quick internet search for recipes. If you want to delve deeper into a specific culture’s cuisine, order a cookbook and try out new dishes with friends or family.
A great way to immerse yourself in a new culture is to sample the artistic output of that community. Reading books, listening to music, and watching movies or TV shows centered on a culture different from your own can help you learn more about that culture’s way of life, traditions, cultural norms, and values.
Check out our white paper for an introduction to the Deaf and Hard of Hearing culture and learn best practices serving the Deaf community within the healthcare sector.