As you work on enhancing your cultural competence, include in your activities learning about people who are not like you.
The social world is a fascinating place, full of immense opportunities for life-long learning. Health care professionals increasingly seek opportunities to deepen their awareness of cultural and social diversity in their commitment to providing the best care to as many people as possible. No single event, course, or experience makes us culturally sophisticated or sensitive; embracing many opportunities over the course of our lifetimes allows us to more deeply understand the remarkable connections and the rich differences among people. Here, we offer a short, general list of some experiences some people have found exciting, interesting, and valuable in their efforts to become more culturally competent. We hope they inspire you.
- Learn a foreign language
- Use your foreign language in community service
- Study abroad
- Take a course in anthropological fieldwork
- Serve as a host, tutor, or goodwill ambassador to people from another country
- Tutor minority kids
- Volunteer at a minority health fair
- Take courses in Black History, Chicano/Chicana Studies, Women's Studies, Asian-American Studies, Native American Studies, sociology, and anthropology
- Read history and sociology texts written by women and people of color
- Make cross-cultural friendships
- Organize a multi-cultural event
- Diversify an organization to which you belong
- Under the supervision of a faculty member, undertake a research project on a cultural
group different from your own
- Study white privilege
- Produce a cultural portfolio documenting your own family's cultural history
- Travel
- Put yourself in situations that allow you to be in the minority
- Familiarize yourself with the musical traditions of your cultural group and those of others
- Learn the history of several forms of dance---and how to do them
- Study the world's religions
- Take a course on global politics or global ecology
- Volunteer at a minority health clinic or an HIV education program
- Volunteer at a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) community center
- Join a LGBT & Allies group - or form a Gay-Straight Alliance at your school
- Volunteer in a community health clinic or Veterans Administration (VA) hospital
- Join an organization working to end racism
- Help organize Black, Latina/Latino, Asian, Native American, or Women's History Month activities at your school
- Volunteer with refugees
- Participate in an organization that provides social services to a minority community
- Organize a film series around religious, cultural, ethnic, or racial diversity
- Watch the Black history documentary series Eyes on the Prize
- Study ethnobotany
- Learn the history of & how to cook the food of another cultural group (after you've learned to cook the food of your own community!)
- Read, read, read!
- Become the pen-pal of someone in another country
- Volunteer at an ethnic community festival, celebration, or pow-wow
- Become involved in a political initiative related to minority, women's, or LGBT interests
- Form or participate in a theatre-of-the-oppressed or diversity-oriented theatre project
- Organize or participate in a disability awareness program
- Educate yourself and, then, your peers about hate speech
- Initiate LGBT safe-space programming in your school or workplace
- Organize, attend, or participate in a krystal nacht or holocaust remembrance event
- Attend religious services, lectures, or celebrations of spiritual traditions different from your own
- Learn sign language
- Make your school, workplace, or residence hall a violence-free & harassment-free zone
- Volunteer at a women's shelter, homeless shelter, or food bank
- Learn the games of other cultures
- Read the alternative press; discover free speech radio news
- Learn karate, aikido, yoga, meditation, shiatsu, t'ai chi, qi gong, or another form of Eastern energy work
- Familiarize yourself with the dynamics of hate crimes
- Study conflict resolution; teach others; bring strategies for ethnic harmony to the places you live and work