The world today, and Israel especially, is a melting pot of people from all over the world with an incredible variety of cultures and languages. As a result, more and more children are raised within multiple cultures simultaneously!

 

International relations and clinical psychology research over the past few decades has identified the effects of a multi/bi-cultural upbringing where a child grows up having to navigate between two or more cultures.

 

• Some positive effects include higher interpersonal skills, socio-cultural literacy, and emotional intelligence, as well as increased cognitive flexibility, resiliency/adaptibility profiles and creative problem-solving capacity.

• Some negative effects have also been identified, however, mostly defined by struggles of emotional instability due to the stress of adjusting and code-switching between cultures, experience of commitment uncertainty, or the feeling of “cultural homelessness.”

 

Here in Israel, many children of Olim (and many Olim / Ktanim Chozrim themselves) are a fitting example

of these cultural chameleons, shifting between cultural frames throughout their lives and never really

feeling that they fully belong to one culture entirely. For example, they might be considered too

Israeli in America and too American in Israel – a combination that just can’t seem to find the right

balance. Thankfully, several therapeutic and community-based interventions have been identified

as effective in helping this population navigate the identity confusion experienced and reach a

positive, balanced and empowered self-view as related to the effects of a

multi-cultural upbringing.

 

The Chameleon Project is a new initiative to raise awareness and foster a community of

cultural chameleons who can create a new and unique cultural home through one another.

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The project works in a four-week workshop format, where each week introduces a new layer of

self-awareness and self-exploration through psychologically-educative social and creative exercises.

The workshops will be divided between separate groups for adults and for children (according to participant quantity / age-range).​ The workshop can be customized upon request.

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For more information, reach out :)