Fundación Punjab

I.    Introduction

The second edition of the Memoir on “Intercultures II” Job Workshop consisted in forming and hiring people coming from different cultures in the field of Intercultural Mediation.

The project has been organized by the Punjab Foundation and financed by SERVEF and the European Social Fund.

The main purpose of the Workshop was the theoretical and practical formation in the intercultural mediation of people and groups who risk social exclusion and exclusion from work; first, by improving their quality of life. Then, by fighting against marginalization. Finally, by making them the access to basic and job resources easier.

II.    Mediation

Mediation is a voluntary method to handle the conflicts which does not pretend the confrontation but the agreement. The conflicts can be of different nature; family, employers, school, institutions or community. The fundamental objective is to avoid the dispute and to satisfy the needs of every involved part. Moreover, the result must be the fruit of the will of the involved groups.

The principles of mediation are:

1.    Impartiality.
2.    Quality of volunteer: any group can withdraw whenever they wish.
3.    The mediator cannot impose any agreement.
4.    We do not look for culprits; what prevails is the collaboration, the comprehension and the acceptation of the other’s point of view.
5.    Confidentiality.
6.    Mediation is an apprenticeship process; one has to guide the groups so that they learn to resolve their disagreements in a constructive way.
7.    Communication: to reestablish it in order to create a genuine and constructive dialogue. For this, it is necessary to have different auxiliary knowledge according to the kind of mediator: family mediator, intercultural mediator…etc.

All these principles must ensure that the groups feel not only protagonists but also responsible of the decisions taken.

The mediator’s tasks:

1.    To calm people down.
2.    To help or recognize the interests when they take a stand on the issue.
3.    To find creative solutions.
4.    To gain the confidence of the groups and, therefore, to have credibility.
5.    To translate the information from a negative to a positive language.
6.    To help the groups to be more realistic.
7.    To maintain a keen negotiation when the groups are ready to abandon.
8.    To make recommendations, if the groups ask for it.
9.    The intercultural mediator has to encourage the judgment and the intercultural community life.

III.    Who are we?

 We are a group formed by 9 women and a man (gypsies and non-gypsies). We receive a theoretical and practical formation regarding Intercultural Mediation, especially next to the gypsy minority, in different social fields.

IV.    Objectives

a)    General objectives

 To post the professional mediators to the labour market.

b)    Specific objectives

To promote the positive interaction between the gypsy, immigrant and autochthon population, and other social entities.
To improve the knowledge of community life with the “others”.

V.    Methodology

-    The project divides into 2 phases:
§    Theoretical and practical formation
§    Intervention in educational, sanitary, community, juridical and work environments.
-    Conflicts are the fruit of the lack of information and of ignorance of others’ cultural codes.
-    The methodology of the workshop is dynamic, flexible, open and active, and it aims to succeed a significant apprenticeship based on cooperation. We talk about significant apprenticeship when a new piece of information is ingrained in pre-existing eminent concepts in the cognitive structure.
-    The significant apprenticeship is not the “simple connection” of the new information with the one which already exists in the cognitive structure of the one who learns.
-    All this to succeed cooperation, respect and mutual aid.

VI.    Formation

a)    Theoretical formation. Interdisciplinary model:
-    Social and Cultural Anthropology: study and analysis of Gypsy culture.
-    Psychology: personal development and growth.
-    Socio-cultural animation: group dynamics (games…etc).
-    Intercultural Mediation from the gender perspective: the woman’s situation.
-    Computing and the use of the internet: handling of Windows, Word and Powerpoint and use of the internet.

b)    External complementary formation: professional speeches, attendance to thematic days, realization and visit of an exposition in a museum in order to amplify the knowledge.

c)    Practical formation

First semester:

Several guided practices in the presence of tutors in the educational environment.

-    Field work in the district of San Agustín; to understand the circumstances and the factors for which the district school became a “ghetto”.
-    Practices of socio-cultural animation in the district of San Lorenzo: dynamics and games.
-    Realization of school dynamics in the district school of San Agustín: socio-educational dynamics to penultimate and last year pupils in primary school.

Second semester: practices in different environments

-    Community environment: Domus Project, to help rehoused families to integrate a new social community and a new neighbourhood.
-    Juridical community: By Right Project, to make the communication between the different entities and administrations and the beneficiaries easier.
-    Sanitary environment: mediation between patients, parents and professionals in the Provincial Hospital of Castellón de la Plana.
-    Educational environment: - Summer School 2008.
                              -Consciousness raising regarding the gypsy minority.
                              - Relationships between the families and the school: between parents, teachers and pupils to improve the academic performance and reduce school absenteeism.
                              - Voluntary courses organized by Jaime I University: “Promotion of the women”.