F08 - Connecting With Multicultural Communities: Intercultural Communication Workshop
Session Description
BCLA's Diversity and Multicultural Services Committee conducted an online survey in April 2016 to identify challenges faced by libraries when serving multicultural communities. The survey received 77 responses from libraries in BC: 71% indicated that their biggest challenge was a lack of familiarity with multicultural communities and their needs, while 81% of the libraries indicated that intercultural training would help them better serve ethnically diverse communities.
This workshop will be a first step in addressing these challenges through exercises, problem-solving, and interactive discussion of real-life library scenarios submitted by library staff.
Speakers
Ravi Basi, Surrey Libraries
Biography
Ravi Basi is Manager of Multicultural Services at Surrey Libraries. For the past 25 years she has provided outreach, programs, and workshops to newcomers, immigrants, and refugees in Surrey, BC, one of Canada's most ethnically diverse cities, as well as formed strategic liasions with community stakeholders such as immigrant settlement agencies and the City of Surrey's diversity departments. Ravi has also been involved with ongoing anti-racism programs and initiatives.
Ravi's work with multicultural communities is fuelled by her own family's experience as immigrants, as well as the conviction that immigrants enrich our communities and are vital to Canada's success on the world stage, and that libraries can play a crucial role in their transition and success.
Fereshteh Kashefi, BSC, MLS, North Vancouver City Library
Biography
Fereshteh Kashefi is Multicultural Services Librarian at North Vancouver City Library where her passion for all things multicultural is focussed on building multilingual collections and improving library services to immigrant communities.
Prior to moving to Canada, Fereshteh was Head of National Bibliography at the National Library of Iran and also taught Cataloguing and Classification at the University of Tehran.