What Does it Mean to do Good?

By Alanna Rivera

Window view of my fight back home from Rome !

To me, doing good in the community means giving a helping hand to someone in need and serving your community when they need it most.

Research can help find out the disparities in communities and where the help is needed most, further understanding community needs, and for designing effective programs to help those communities. The opportunities for progress would be translating the research into action, you have the data , now what do you do with it? There is opportunity for change with research when you have concrete data, you can have an influence on policy, help professionally develop NGO’s and nonprofits, and help

others to better engage with their community. Some errors that could occur is not listening to the peoples voices in the community and assuming you know what is best because of research, poor communication and not having realistic goals.

My understanding of community engagement has shifted because it made me think about what community engagement means across cultures. It made me realize that a lot of the time , trying to help may do more harm than good because there are so many different cultural backgrounds to take into consideration when trying to help a community and how important it is to meet others where they are.

I believe further work in my CBI’s area of cross-cultural communication should focus on its influence in professional settings, especially in international workplaces. During my internship in Italy, I encountered several challenges that stemmed not from language barriers, but from cultural communication differences. Although I expected cultural differences, I hadn’t fully considered how communication styles would impact daily interactions. Even while speaking English, I often felt out of the loop. I come from a low-context culture like the United States, where communication tends to be direct, structured, and explicit. In contrast, Italy operates with a high-context communication style that relies on nonverbal cues, implicit understanding, and shared social norms.

For example, while working, I was accustomed to having a set schedule. When discussing my schedule with the lab team, they told me and my fellow interns to “come whenever you want.” Because of our long commute, we arrived around 12:30 pm. However, our supervisor was upset that we were late. We were confused because the message seemed flexible, but the subtext was that arriving anytime past 11 am was considered “late.” This situation highlighted how implicit expectations and indirect communication can lead to misunderstandings. In my internship seminar, we learned how these cultural frameworks shape workplace interactions. However, experiencing it firsthand made me realize how easily misunderstandings can arise—not from what is said, but from what is left unsaid. Italians tend to prioritize relationship-building and shared experiences over formal collaboration, which can feel disorienting for someone used to a more direct approach. This led me to wonder how many other things go “lost in translation” in international work environments where people share a common language, but not a common communication culture.

I would like to explore further questions such as: How can international organizations better prepare employees to navigate these cultural communication gaps? What strategies can be implemented to bridge high- and low-context styles to improve collaboration and reduce misunderstanding in diverse teams?