I am now living far from my family and my hometown, which are two communities that are important to me. Now that I live in the US, there are other communities I am part of, which are just as important. One of the communities I am part of is the international student group at Champlain College.
The international student group at Champlain College has its own club called the Cultural Community Alliance (CCA). It is a student-run club which is sponsored by the Office of International Education. I am one of the board members of this group, and our mission is to provide opportunities for every member of the Champlain community to explore different cultures and perspectives in a safe environment. We also represent the diversity at the Champlain College, as well as are a good resource for social networking.
Our social structure is one important point of our group and we highly recommend everyone at Champlain, from faculty to students, participate in our group. I believe that if we all get together we can make a difference in people’s lives. We teach people about the world through our cultures. There are about 10 cultures represented in our group, from Afghanistan to India to Liberia.
We meet every other week, in one of the public areas on campus such as the library, to have discussions and to talk about our goals for the month ahead of us. In every meeting we make plans to have events or social activities such as skiing, playing games, cooking, cultural coffeehouses and International Education Week. The key points to our social activities such as the coffeehouse and the International Education Week are to provide opportunities for every member to share their experiences and to display their cultural values that would help them to represent their cultures. These activities are very important to participate because we gain a lot of knowledge about the people and the world we live in.
I have met a lot of friends through this group, learned a lot about different cultures and different Americans. I have been having so much fun, which is very good for people like me who have come a long way and just met new cool people. If having fun was not the focus of the club, all the international students would get homesick and would miss everything about their parents and their own communities. It is important to create a new environment and live with different people and eat different foods that we are not used to. If I was not part of this community, then people wouldn’t know much about me, my culture and my home country of Afghanistan. It is the same for other people, and when we get together for anything we can actually make a difference in the community as a whole and we learn a lot from each other.
The international student group at Champlain College has its own club called the Cultural Community Alliance (CCA). It is a student-run club which is sponsored by the Office of International Education. I am one of the board members of this group, and our mission is to provide opportunities for every member of the Champlain community to explore different cultures and perspectives in a safe environment. We also represent the diversity at the Champlain College, as well as are a good resource for social networking.
Our social structure is one important point of our group and we highly recommend everyone at Champlain, from faculty to students, participate in our group. I believe that if we all get together we can make a difference in people’s lives. We teach people about the world through our cultures. There are about 10 cultures represented in our group, from Afghanistan to India to Liberia.
We meet every other week, in one of the public areas on campus such as the library, to have discussions and to talk about our goals for the month ahead of us. In every meeting we make plans to have events or social activities such as skiing, playing games, cooking, cultural coffeehouses and International Education Week. The key points to our social activities such as the coffeehouse and the International Education Week are to provide opportunities for every member to share their experiences and to display their cultural values that would help them to represent their cultures. These activities are very important to participate because we gain a lot of knowledge about the people and the world we live in.
I have met a lot of friends through this group, learned a lot about different cultures and different Americans. I have been having so much fun, which is very good for people like me who have come a long way and just met new cool people. If having fun was not the focus of the club, all the international students would get homesick and would miss everything about their parents and their own communities. It is important to create a new environment and live with different people and eat different foods that we are not used to. If I was not part of this community, then people wouldn’t know much about me, my culture and my home country of Afghanistan. It is the same for other people, and when we get together for anything we can actually make a difference in the community as a whole and we learn a lot from each other.
