International students can volunteer in Cape Girardeau community

The International Center at Southeast Missouri State University is providing international students with an opportunity to give back to the community that has taken them in.

Suzanne McKinney, the assistant director of International Programming, is coordinating the Show Me the World program that allows Southeast students from different countries to speak to students at local schools.

"Typically, international students are pretty open to being involved in community-building projects," McKinney said. "A lot of them want to share their cultures, and share their backgrounds because so many people don't understand where they come from or why they do the things they do."

The intention of the program is to bring different cultures from around the world into classrooms and curricula.

"Many people really can't experience facets of the world they may never see, unfortunately, but now they could get to experience it through story, through video, through dance, through food," McKinney said.

The objectives of the Show Me the World program are similar to that of the Cultural Exchange Network's objectives with their Culture in the Classroom program in the Innovation Center at Southeast.

Leslie Corn, director of communications at CENET, said that its Culture in the Classroom program offers the same opportunities to the international students and the community as the Show Me the World program does.

According to Corn, the goal of the international students involved in the Culture in the Classroom program is to introduce their home countries to the students at the local schools while "engaging the students in fun interactive activities."

"CENET has a fantastic program, but the main reason that we established one that is almost identical to it is we have a number of requests that come straight to our office. From a programming standpoint, between CENET's project and ours, we are both limited in the scope of what we each can do," McKinney said.

Since there are more international students than either program could reach on their own, McKinney said that providing more opportunities for international involvement in the community will be beneficial to everyone involved.

"It was flattering to see that our Culture in the Classroom initiative had been adapted by the international office when they developed their Show Me the World program," Corn said. "In the past, we have contacted the international office for help recruiting students, and we are delighted to know that international students will now have double the opportunities to give back to the local community."

The International Center and CENET offer their programs as a free service. The programs usually only host events upon request, and both groups encourage interested parties to utilize their services.

"We want the international students to learn and grow while experiencing the host culture, but we also want that same type of learning to be reciprocated by the residents of the area," Corn said. "By getting involved in the community, the international students, as well as the local students, receive a reciprocal opportunity to understand one another on a deeper level."

Any international students interested in volunteering are encouraged to do so. For information on the Show Me the World program, contact Suzanne McKinney at smckinney@semo.edu. For more information on the Culture in the Classroom program, contact CENET at citc@culturalexchangenetwork.org.