vesterberg.se

I am back home again after yet another green world café. We might not have been a huge crowd, but for me to experience the connections and conversations that emerge among diverse people, young and old, businessmen and students, environmentalists and just “ordinary” people are so inspiring. As I have written before, diversity is really powerful. Facilitation dialogue is the most exciting (and challenging) thing I have done for a long time. If you haven’t heard of conversations like the World Café, read about it at theworldcafe.com.

On-line cafés

Afterwards a few of us discussed the possibilities to include people from other countries in the conversations through video-conferencing systems. Imagine discussing sustainability issues with people from Greenland, Malaysia or Borneo, or having “joint-cafés” happening at the same time at different places.

We need mirrors

We have ways of thinking and solving problems in Europe that we believe is right. Many people are not aware of that their way of thinking is just a way of thinking. Do you follow me? We have one perspective, but there are more. We try to be “objective”, but in a fact we have blind spots that become visible to us only through meeting people from other cultures. These people are gifts to us! This is an alternative way to look at immigrants. They are gifts, not problems. We are often so eager to export our thoughts and solutions. We have good ideas, yes, but do we know it all? People from other cultures are in a way like mirrors. Through conversation and friendship with them, we can see ourselves in new light and we change to the better.

On-line conversations

We have people with different ethnicity close by, in our own city, but wouldn’t it be a fascinating to utilize new technology to connect across cultures? You might read this and live in New Zealand, Kenya or Singapore. You are a gift to the Swedish culture and I am a gift to yours. Would you say yes to a cross-cultural conversation?