Introduction: Words of Empathy, Access, and Relief

Crises erupt every day; they can affect an individual, a family, a vulnerable social group, a region, country, nation, or can be cross-borders. With an interconnected world and globally broadcast news, they seem to occur all the time (Federici, 2016). The scale, size, duration, impact and risks for property or people are studied in disaster risk research (Alexander, 2016). The effects of individual disruptive events (the trigger for a crisis) are considered more and more as cascading (Pescaroli and Alexander, 2016). Mitigating these effects – be they cross-boundaries, local, national or particularly significant for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities – depends on efficient, effective, timely and widely broadcast communication. Communication in disasters, emergencies and in the different phases of developing crises is crucial and is normally an intercultural interaction. Yet the area remains under-explored with very few exceptions. The need for more efficient intercultural communication among international humanitarian field operators begins to be acknowledged in those reports that focus on the consequences of inefficient communication in responding to international crises....