Ral-manapanmirr ga dha-manapanmirr - Collaborating and connecting: Creating an educational process and multimedia resources to facilitate intercultural communication

Purpose: Yolnju (First Nations Australians from North-East Arnhem Land, Northern Territory) and Balanda (nonIndigenous people) often encounter communication challenges at a cultural interface during the provision of health and education services. To address these challenges, our project co-created an educational process and resources to inform and facilitate intercultural communication. During interactive workshops, participants and researchers from different cultural backgrounds reflected on their communication practice together in small groups. Reflection and discussion during the workshops were supported by multi-media resources designed to be accessible and resonant for both Yol. u and Balanda partners. Participants explored and implemented strategies during intercultural engagement within and beyond the workshop. In this article we explain our processes of co-creating intercultural communication education and share features of our educational process and resources that resonated with participants from both cultural groups. Method: Our intercultural team of researchers used a culturally-responsive approach to Participatory Action Research (PAR) to co-create an intercultural communication workshop and multi-media resources collaboratively with 52 Yol. u and Balanda end-users. Result: Collaborating (the power and value of genuine collaboration and engagement throughout the process) and connecting (the meeting and valuing of multiple knowledges, languages and modes of expression) were key elements of both our methods and findings. Our processes co-created accessible, inclusive, collaborative spaces in which researchers and participants were actively supported to implement intercultural communication processes as they learned about them. Conclusion: Our work may have relevance for others who are developing educational processes and resources for facilitating intercultural communication in ways that honour participants' voices, challenge inaccessible systems, resonate with diverse audiences and create opportunities for research translation.