Center celebrates 30 years
of service
By Megan Finnerty
Features
Editor
The International Center is celebrating its 30th
Anniversary as a "home away from home" for international families and
students in the Greater Lafayette Area.
The center started as a nonprofit organization
that would house and provide a social center, office space and gathering
place for intellectual and recreational activities.
Now the center's mission has expanded and includes
many programs that seek to foster international cooperation and understanding
among internationals as well as between internationals and Americans.
Mindy Jester, one of the center's co-directors,
said she and the center's volunteers want to help internationals adjust
to America and promote more interaction between community members and
internationals.
"Everyone has the same basic needs," Jester said.
"We are here to provide a place for people to go where they can learn
about the little things Americans take for granted. Just being welcoming
toward people means so much."
Renate Mallus, the center's other co-director, said many internationals
come to the Lafayette area able to understand and speak English but
lack experience with mundane skills such as how to catch a bus, where
to buy certain items and how to determine fair prices for items.
"A young man was just in here and he wanted to
know what store you go to find an iron," said Mallus, who is from Germany.
"These are basic things, but they're hard to find out if you don't have
anyone to ask.
"You just never know what people are going to show
up at the door with or what they'll need."
The center is much more than an information desk,
however. Although there is a constant stream of international students,
professors and community members that walk through the door at 523 Russell
Street looking for help and advice, the center's biggest role is that
of classroom.
Jester said that between 300 and 400 people take
conversational English classes at the center each year. There are also
classes on American idiomatic usage and conversational French, German,
Spanish, Chinese, etc.
The center's many rooms are in constant use by
people from all over the world. Whether it's a group of Indonesians
using the kitchen to prepare a Friday night feast, an Argentinean dancer
giving Tango lessons in the common room or a band of German-speaking
children playing together on a Saturday afternoon, all types of people
use the center for all kinds of reasons.
"People are not cliquish here," Mallus said. "We
come here for the express purpose of mingling."
The halls and rooms of the International Center
are often filled with the sounds of singing and dancing as different
organizations hold dances, demonstrations or classes as a way of sharing
their cultures with each other.
On Tuesday morning, a 9-year-old Indian girl swathed
in crimson and yellow performed a variety of traditional dances for
a group of women and children from a variety of nations during a weekly
meeting of "Coffee & Conversation."
The bells clinking on her feet chimed throughout
the center, drawing more visitors into the already full room. As she
rocked on the balls of her red-stained feet and swayed her hips to the
music, the women around her commented to each other in several languages.
When she had finished, many women posed questions
in English, a common language between most internationals.
The girl beamed and answered all the questions
in perfect English as fast as the women could ask them.
|
