Culture Cafe
Our Mission
We believe that every human has a unique perspective worth sharing. Our goal is to promote reciprocal learning among humans from all different walks of life; everyone has something to teach and everyone has something to learn. We wish to encourage all humans to listen deeply to others' stories with respect and curiosity, and to empower all humans to courageously share their own stories.
Our Team
Kadin Kristjansson
Kadin Kristjansson is the founder of Culture Cafe. Currently a student at Smith College, Kadin studies chemistry and foreign languages, namely Spanish and Arabic (Modern Standard and the Levantine dialect). She plans on spending her workdays in a biochemical laboratory and her evenings in her local community, using her language skills to help newcomers transition to life in the US. She has actively aided immigrants and refugees since the November of 2021, when she began tutoring for ILI’s free English language program; she is now a Refugee Advocate for ARISE and she hopes to expand Culture Cafe to reach more newcomers in need of support.
Kadin discloses her reasons for creating Culture Cafe in her blog post The Story of Culture Cafe:
“It was that year, when reflecting upon my experience as a newcomer to Massachusetts, that I truly realized how difficult it must be to adjust to life not just in a new city, but in a new nation with a different language and customs.”
International Language Institute of Massachusetts
The International Language Institute of Massachusetts (ILI) is a private, non-profit language school founded in 1984 and located in Northampton, Massachusetts.
ILI’s mission is to promote intercultural understanding and diverse communities by providing high-quality language instruction and teacher training.
Language can bring people together or sometimes create barriers that are difficult to overcome. We know that in this country and many others, poor skills in the “official” language contribute to the marginalization of many people, making it hard for them to realize their full potential. At ILI, we provide English language training in the hopes of bringing a truly multicultural, and linguistically equitable, society to reality.