International House Berkeley

4 International House Times T his winter, 14 residents participated in our Intercultural Leadership Initiative (ILI), a program of the Robertson Center for Intercultural Leadership (CIL), here at I-House. As part of the program, residents formed small teams to conceptualize and present a final project. One team invited a group of representatives from the Berkeley College Republicans to I-House to engage in a facilitated discussion with residents. ILI participant Jeanette van der Lee writes about navigating opposing sides of the political spectrum on her journey of discovery. I'm half Dutch and half American, but I was born and raised in the Netherlands and had never lived in the US during a presidential election. I knew the election was going to be emotional, but the amount of anger and even hatred that I saw around me before, during, and after the election truly shocked me. I observed people not understanding each other and not understanding each other's fears. I noticed that people either didn't know anyone with—or distanced themselves from—others with different political opinions. On social media, many people often saw a polarized image of the other party. No one seemed to see the supporters of the other party as human beings anymore. As much as I wanted to change this situation, I didn't know what I could do on my own or where to start. However, my participation in the Intercultural Leadership Initiative (ILI) at I-House introduced me to methods and strategies that changed that. In ILI, we were taught skills for working in an intercultural environment and how to lead an intercultural team. At the end of the course, our final assignment was to work in teams and teach the skills we had learned to a community of our choice. My fellow team members, Karen Elve Strand (Norway) and Mark Smith (USA), also wanted to increase understanding between people from different sides of the political spectrum. Suddenly it seemed at least possible to take a small step towards reversing the polarization of the election, so we decided to organize a meeting between members of the Berkeley College Republicans and residents of I-House. e skill we chose to teach during this meeting was how to DIVE. e letters in DIVE stand for describe, interpret, verify, and evaluate. "Diving" is a tool that can be used in situations in which people are unfamiliar with or different from one another. It's a tool that helps people question stereotypes or assumptions they have and helps them avoid jumping to conclusions. Often when we see or experience something, we interpret it and jump straight to an evaluation before verifying our interpretation, especially when we're experiencing a culture that's different from our own. is is a common, often unconscious human reaction, and it does not happen just in intercultural situations. For example, think back to a time when you just assumed something about someone, based solely on what you saw, and later learned that your assumption wasn't correct at all. Chances are you An ILI Project Taking the First Step to Increase Understanding Between Opposing Sides of the Political Spectrum By Jeanette van der Lee Jeanette van der Lee Teaching the DIVE method "It's hard to admit, but like others, I saw Republicans more and more as a group of people whose ideas differed from my own and less as individuals with their own ideas, their own personalities, and their own experiences." Election Reflection

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