Arts & Leisure
Meet people in your community while learning about other cultures
By Melissa Wood
YORK - Would you like to learn more about other cultures? You don't need to travel far.The York Diversity Forum will hold an International Mixer on Jan. 29, providing an opportunity for people to meet members of the community who come from other countries and have different customs and speak other languages.
It is also an opportunity to help those new members of the community become more comfortable with speaking English.
Organizer Carol Davis said she hopes the event will kick off the Conversation Partners program, a pairing of native and non-native speakers of English who meet informally to talk.
In the partnerships, "people in the community provide a service and learn about other cultures," said Davis.
Davis said there are number of people in town whose native country is not America who would be eager to meet somebody in the community and converse with them. These non-native speakers include residents and temporary workers and even people who have met their significant others online and came to America to marry.
She said the non-native speakers often come to York Adult and Community Education to take English classes.
"They're sort of an unseen group," said Davis. "They tend to know each other, but they're not really known by the rest of the population."
Although some of the people already know quite a bit of English, being paired up with a conversation partner would help non-native speakers practice speaking English beyond the classroom.
"A lot of times they have taken English classes in the country they're from," said Davis, "but the classes don't cover idioms that we use in America."
People who attend the International Mixer and participate in Conversation Partners are not only helping out people in the community but are also able to learn more about places they may have visited.
"Some of these people have visited the countries the people are from," said Davis, adding that as a traveler to another country "you don't really talk to the people themselves."
Davis said the Diversity Forum would be coordinating the partnerships, but where and how individual partners want to meet is up to them.
Davis said conversation partners could talk over a cup of coffee or tea or take a walk on the beach together, whatever kind of informal arrangement works best.
The Diversity Forum chose this Monday night for the mixer since some of the non-native residents work in restaurants and have that night available.
Davis said the mixer is open to everybody and she said she's hoping people looking for something to do this winter will attend.
"We're hoping that people will become more aware," she said.
The event will be held from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at York Middle School and is being sponsored by the York Diversity Forum and York Adult and Community Education. Light refreshments will be served and childcare is available.
For more information, call York Adult and Community Education at 363-7922.
