Being Welcoming - Tips
So, you're at a party. The host introduces you to a Russian client who has just arrived in the country and speaks minimal English. You want to connect, but you feel embarrassed and conscious of the huge cultural, conceptual and language abyss that lies between you!
At Support You we've learned a lot from sharing with women who've moved to Cape Town and how they've felt. So here are ten tips that could help to make a big difference to your new acquaintance, and make you feel more confident:
- Kindness goes a long way - further than you think.
- Start gently.
- Use gentle humour but don't embarrass them.
- Ask about home and show an interest in their world.
- Avoid making assumptions about politics.
- Avoid stereotyping people of different backgrounds.
- Share a little about your background.
- Don't overwhelm them.
- Be inclusive.
- Use networking to connect them to others.
For you, doing any one of these ten steps at worst means fifteen minutes of feeling potentially a bit awkward, at best it could mean opening up new interesting places and ways of thinking, and being able to see your world from another perspective.
For the new-comer from aanother country, it could mean a world of difference between an evening of excruciating loneliness, awkwardness, or homesickness and a warm welcoming person who impacted them hugely by briding that gap and extending empathetic kindness.
