“Emily’s training equipped me with new ways of approaching cross-cultural issues. I would recommend her expertise to anyone who is looking to problem-solve with teams made up of people from different countries.”
Michael Lutomski, NASA
“…new way of thinking about diversity and inclusion.”
Head of HR, InterState Engineering
“Emily’s style and approach to cross cultural training promoted self-confidence, and motivation to breakdown preconceptions, prejudices, and stereotypes that obstruct our understanding of other people.”
Darren Grosch, Director of Student Programs
MT San Antonio College
“We had the pleasure of working with Emily Braucher and ReFresh Communications for our annual partner retreat. From my initial reach out to post-event, Emily was simply amazing to work with! Emily took the time to understand our event’s purpose and tailored the presentation to meet our needs. She also took the time to reach out to our community stakeholders ahead of time so she could hear directly from her audience and better understand their perspectives. We also connected in-person the day before the event to talk through additional edits/suggestions. Emily is extremely thoughtful in her approach and deliberate in making sure the content is relevant and practical to the audience she is working with. The day of the event, Emily was extremely dynamic and kept the audience deeply engaged throughout the presentation. She breaks down the content, so it is easily digestible and applicable to each individual/communities’ realities. Emily also incorporated different adult learning techniques to keep the audience deeply listening. One of our attendees said, ‘I really loved the presentation by Emily – I learned new insights, specifically how we can calm the fear/stress, be comfortable with the uncomfortable feelings in order to build trust with diverse partners.’ Post-event, Emily created a short takeaway video that was shared with all attendees. It’s a great way to ensure the learning continues beyond the initial presentation or event. I highly recommend Emily for future events – your audience will not be disappointed!!”
Meeting Planner Vani Tangella,
AUNCH Together Colorado
“It has been a pleasure to have the outstanding opportunity to work with Emily Braucher as a co-instructor at the National Fire Academy. She has been an extremely valuable asset both as a subject matter expert and instructor teaching the Culture Competence programs to fire service leaders throughout the country and internationally abroad. Emily is a transformational leader that works endlessly and passionately with the students about exploring culture and their differences and how it relates to both our personal basis and views.
“Her ability to allow the students to look internally at their personal values and beliefs and use this new found self-awareness, personal leadership to develop the needed cross cultural communication skills to be successful in delivering appropriate fire service programs and services in future is simply amazing.
“I personally recommend that if you ever get a chance to attend one of Emily’s programs that you will walk away a better person than you started with. It is simply amazing to watch how she works with and interacts with her students!”
Michael P. Wallace EFO, CFO, MIFireE, MBA, MA
Retired Deputy Fire Chief / Adjunct Instructor National Fire Academy
Town of Salem, NH 03079
“The intercultural conflict training by ReFresh Intercultural Communication was a much-needed tool in our multi-cultural office. The training gave us the vocabulary and context from which to be able to talk about our different conflict resolution styles. We regularly include the terms and models we learned in our discussions and now include some of these models in all of our new-staff orientations. We’d be delighted to have ReFresh Intercultural Communication’s team come do a training again any time you are in the area because these types of trainings are exactly what we need to improve our team’s ability to work effectively together!”
Daniela Ruby Papi, Executive Director
PEPY Tours / Cambodia
“Emily’s training gave me a better understanding of how traditions, beliefs and social norms impact every aspect of our lives. I was able to take what I learned back to my department and find areas where we were missing the mark in connecting with our community due to cultural differences. Since this training, our Fire Department has been working towards building trusting relationships with customers we weren’t reaching before. We are working on developing programs that will work within their culture to help teach them how to reduce risk.”
Jenna Ladowski, Pudre Fire, CO
“Before meeting Emily Braucher, I had already worked with people from different countries and cultures. The people I worked with have always appreciated my work, but I always felt something is missing. After I attended Emily’s training series, I felt more mature professionally. I understood that to be able to perform well and reach a high level of satisfaction in every task, human being needs to understand each other: Who they are, where they are from, why they act differently sometimes, and how to work and interact with them.
“I have to confess that it is only after some of Emily’s sessions that I finally understand what type of person I am. What my strengths are — but also my weaknesses and how I can work on improving them.
“This has helped me a lot in my current job. My job consists of taking care of the safety and security of more than 200 foreigners who live and work in my country, Senegal. This is quite difficult. One question that usually comes from the volunteers is why I never panic and have answers to all the questions they come to me with. I usually answer I don’t think I have the answers to all the questions, but I am lucky enough to have met a person who has helped me never panic when facing issues and ready to address issues just because I have been taught to know and understand others; but also know myself, my strengths, and weaknesses. That person is Emily Braucher.”
Mbouille Diallo, Chief Safety and Security Office
Peace Corps Senegal 2011-present
“Several years ago, I participated in a training of Emily’s which focused on intercultural conflict styles. In the years since, I have frequently brought to mind the activities and examples used during this workshop. Particularly during the time, I have spent working and studying in the Middle East, I have found the concept to be invaluable to helping me be more adept at working with Egyptians, Moroccans, Jordanians, and Omanis. Emily’s ability to really engage trainees with this topic helped me better conceptualize how some people prefer conflict styles which differ from the one that I feel most at home with. Without having participated in Emily’s engaging training, I believe I would struggle with aspects of my work in education abroad; work which requires knowledge of and ability to work with styles that vary across cultures.”
Cara Lane-Toomey, Senior Program Officer
AMIDEAST Education Abroad Programs in the Arab World;
RPCV Morocco 2005-2007
“Emily Braucher is an amazing facilitator and is adept at challenging people to think more profoundly in order to be more compassionate and to create smoother working and personal relationships. She has shown herself to be truly dedicated to the emerging field of intercultural communication. Emily’s workshops address conflict resolution for our organization’s working teams, which are often made up of staff from diverse cultures. One workshop was particularly profound for me. I was preparing to work a summer program in Rwanda and was concerned about how my team was dividing up work duties. One of my team members was Rwandan, and I had very little experience working with people from that background. We had been struggling to get to agreement on a few issues, and I found that his methods of appeasement did not really solve the issues at hand but rather covered them up. I was drawn to discuss our issues, and he preferred to pretend that things were fine. I was frustrated and nervous about leading with him. Emily led a workshop that allowed all of our instructor teams to explore our different approaches and styles of conflict management. She pointed out that people from certain backgrounds may approach conflict in ways such as saving face, avoidance, etc. while Americans may be more direct. I just remember thinking that she had not only brought awareness to our differences, she had also normalized them and made them less personal and more cultural. Truly, this changed not only how I worked with my team that summer, but also how I approached everyone that I met in Rwanda from that day forward. That workshop also changed the perspective of my Rwandan team member, and gave us something to reference when we experienced conflict throughout the course of the summer.”
Liz Connor, Course Instructor
Where There Be Dragons / Rwanda
“I have gained a lot from this workshop. Now I understand more about the conflicts that are happening around me when I work with people from different countries and cultures. I learned valuable skills on how to adapt when I am with people from other cultures and I can understand more about the roots of their culture. I feel more equipped than before to solve problems related to culture and conflict. I can apply these skills not only at work, but also at home as conflict comes up everywhere.”
Chivan Sros, Project Alba / Cambodia
“Emily was a hit! She grabbed our attention and inspired us
to remove distraction and connect with each other.”
Kristi Moon, TechStars
Meeting Planner
“Emily worked with RES Diversity & Inclusion and Learning & Development teams to deliver multiple, customized training programs, and her experience and expertise left us with tangible takeaways on how to have more effective communication and collaboration across the RES organization. Her training sessions serves as valuable opportunities to think outside the box about the dynamics that affect our working environment and understand how to work better with others inside and outside of RES. B/c her offerings are constantly evolving as work cultures and dynamics change over time, I’m sure we’ll be enlisting her assistance again in the future!”
Training Organizer Caroline Twitchell, Director of Finance
Renewable Energy Systems, Americas
“Emily was a hit! She grabbed our attention and inspired us
to remove distraction and connect with each other.”
Kristi Moon, TechStars
Meeting Planner
“That was monumental!”
Participant, LAUNCH Together, CO
“Emily employs a range of techniques to enable participants to peel back the layers of their own assumptions in order to improve cross-cultural communication. The activities are quite challenging, but Emily creates a safe, intimate space in which participants can analyze examples from their own professional life. The results are powerful.”
Claire Bennett, Education Consultant
“The training effectively helped our clients learn to identify waste of resources when cultural context isn’t taken into account in addition to providing the framework and tools to function at the nexus of efficiency and effectiveness by addressing barriers to collaboration. I was personally impressed by her ability to create spaces for our clients to surface underlying tension within the group dynamic.”
Brett Fleishman, Senior Analyst, 350.org
“At the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg Maryland, I had the opportunity to take a cultural competence class taught by Emily Braucher. Emily’s desire, compassion, and ability to enhance the student’s competence in understanding different cultures within their community are one of a kind. Prior to taking the course, I had limited understanding in why people act and behave in the manners they do. After the course, I take personal responsibility in understanding cultural behaviors and responding appropriately rather than making generalizations and upholding stereotypes. The information gained by taking the class helped me implement material in Plainfield Fire Department’s prevention program that outreached the underserved and hidden cultures within my community. I highly recommend Emily’s seminars to anyone involved in public relations within their community.”
Kyle Svoboda
Plainfield Fire Department MI
“I am writing this testimonial in support of your Cultural Competence training course for public safety officials. The #1 conflict in public safety circles is encounters with others that do not think, act, or engage in our impressions of what normal is supposed to look like. Your course taught me how to be more successful by thinking about the cultural influences of other people. I can tell you it has made me less judgmental and more successful in dealing with other people. Applying even a little bit of tact learned from your course at the National Fire Academy has been well-received by those around me. I find fire prevention is easier with populations of different cultures because the people we interact with are more open to receiving a culturally competent message. I have sought out those cultural “spokespeople” and have had nothing but success. The first question I often catch myself asking when planning a project is, ‘is this a culturally competent message likely to be received as intended?’ A week spent with you on this topic is a must for any public safety agency. I look back at many experiences I have had before taking your course. Many times I thought people were deceptive when in fact they were showing respect or adhering to their years of influence. As a police officer, I am much safer knowing the cultural influences that cause reactions and actions. As a fire chief, I find a better bang for our limited resources because our audience is likely to have higher attendance and be well received.”
Ray Reynolds, Director of Fire and EMS, Nevada, Iowa
Past State Fire Marshal for the State of Iowa
“When taking the leap to start an international NGO it is reassuring to know that I can rely on ReFresh to guide me through the understanding the right way to conduct intercultural business. I found the first training I attended incredibly helpful in understanding the cultural complexities of communicating with not only the people I am working with in Nepal, but also with my American co-workers who have different communication styles than I. I am looking forward to learning more from ReFresh, and hoping they can help me to minimize misunderstandings as I continue on my global journey to do good.”
Anya Cherneff, Executive Director
Empower Generation / Nepal
“I strongly believe that anyone who plans on doing
international development work should have this training.”
Maria Hach, student, Master of International Development and
Environmental Analysis, Monash University, Australia
“I deeply wish I could have had Emily Braucher’s training when I was in the Peace Corps. It took me months and months of trial and error to navigate some of the communication skills and concepts she taught us in just a few hours. Her capacity to bridge the gap between cultures through accessible communication skills and practical tools that can be used immediately would have helped me successfully transition into my community with ease and support, while honoring the local community’s values and unseen cultural cues. She is a fantastic facilitator – applying with grace and a deep understanding the content of her trainings and connecting to her audience with humor, invaluable information and direct experience. I highly recommend Emily’s trainings to anyone who is in relationship and specifically anyone working with others cross-culturally.”
Rachael Bonaiuto, psychologist and CEO
Embodies Wellness, RPCV Thailand, 2001-2004
“Through the cross-cultural trainings provided by Emily Braucher I was exposed to facts and information about my own culture, and worldviews that I normally would not contemplate. Emily’s style and approach to cross cultural training promoted self-confidence, and motivation to breakdown preconceptions, prejudices, and stereotypes that obstruct our understanding of other people. In addition, I was able to develop my listening skills, thereby becoming a more effective and productive communicator. Emily’s cross-cultural trainings were innovative and provided an alternative and motivating way of analyzing and resolving problems when approaching challenges in my work or personal life.”
Darren Grosch, Director, Center of International Education, Otis College
RPCV Chad (2004-2006), RPCV Morocco (2006-2008)
“I strongly believe that anyone who plans on doing
international development work should have this training.”
Maria Hach, volunteer at PEPYRide / Cambodia
“Emily’s concept of direct and indirect thinkers put a name to what I’ve been dealing with in my Engineers Without Borders work, and it seems to be the number one reason for failures in the project my chapter has been working on, and in development work in general.”
Elyse O’Callaghan
Engineers Without Borders / International
“Something I took away from Emily’s course on Intercultural Conflict Styles was a deeper respect for different ways of solving conflict. As an expat living in Latin America in the USAID/Catholic Relief Services, I felt misunderstood and frustrated when trying to solve problems with my Latino counterparts. Emily’s trainings guided me to understand the wisdom and rationale behind certain cultural norms. In my subsequent work in Latin America, things began to move forward quite easily. Without this training, I wouldn’t have had near as much success developing these trusting and productive relationships. I wish I had had access to this depth of training as a volunteer working to establish positive rapport with my community.”
Chris Lamar, psychologist
Mental Health Partners, USAID (2005-2009)
