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The Team Intercultural Dialogue has been created by the Executive Board to advise on intercultural issues at Wageningen UR and to strengthen the dialogue between the richness of cultures within the Wageningen UR community. Both staff and students participate in the team.
Intercultural dialogue is defined as a process that promotes an open and respectful interaction between individuals and groups with different cultural backgrounds. The Team is busy developing plans to create the conditions for intercultural dialogue and suggest solutions for problems that may occur.
Wageningen UR is populated by a richly varied group of people from diverse cultures, which makes studying, working and living exciting but not always easy. It requires trust and respect to meet ‘the other’ and everyone’s recognition that he or she is ‘the other’ too.
Dialogue is needed for a constructive process of studying, working and living in an intercultural environment! To benefit together from the challenges and chances diversity offers.
The Week of Cultural Diversity was the first event to celebrate the richness of different Wageningen UR cultures (15-21 September 2008).
Other plans of the team include: talks with staff about their experiences, suggestions for improvement welcoming foreign students, linking various existing buddy initiatives, managing expectations.
The team wants to be a platform for experiences, information, questions, best practices etc. At a later stage these experiences may be used for recommendations to the Executive Board.
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Your suggestions, comments, best practices, questions and experiences are welcome on diversity@wur.nl They will be handled with care by the Team Intercultural Dialogue to find out what can and has to be done to further develop Wageningen UR into an international community. | |