ISSERV March 2013: Service Raleigh

On Saturday March 23rd, 2013 NC State’s international community participated in one of the largest student run volunteer events in the southeast. Service Raleigh is an annual event organized by NC State’s Park Scholars that matches nearly 2000 volunteers with community volunteer projects for a single day of service.

45 international students from 11 different countries (Serbia, the USA, China, Thailand, Japan, India, Venezuela, France, Morocco, Turkey and Egypt) joined the OIS team and an additional 100 American students worked together to participate in NC State 4th Annual Rubbage Ride.

Divided into seven small but mighty groups, we all individually contributed to “clean, beautiful and litter-free NC State community”. Each group was assigned part of Main or Centennial Campus that they needed to approach by bike or on foot and clean. After a two hour walk (or ride), we all transported the litter to NC State Recreation Center to sort into recycle, trash or recyclable. Overall, our group “collected 551 pounds of litter and sorted more than half of it for recycling”.

It’s truly impressive to see 2000 volunteers awake and ready to work on a Saturday morning. Our group was a major part of that effort and OIS had fun working beside our fellow volunteers! Thanks to those that participated! We’re already looking forward to next year’s Service Raleigh.

If you are interested in participating in our next ISSERV project, please visit our web page to read more about it and complete the application.

To read more about this year’s Service Raleigh project, please read the story in the Technician – Service Raleigh Helps out the City.

Cultural Showcase: Brazil

Images courtesy of Cristiane Damasceno Sommer

On Wednesday, February 27th, as part of our series of cultural events, the Office of International Services with the help of a few of our international students from Brazil showcased Brazil through food, dance, presentations and samba demonstrations. OIS wishes to extend a special thank you to Fernanda Da Costa Portugal Duarte and Mauren Turcatel, NC State PhD students from Brazil, as well as their friends from NC State, Wake Tech, Duke and the Brazilian Association of the Triangle for coordinating the organization of this event.

Brazilian Showcase took place in Caldwell Lounge at NC State Main Campus between 12pm and 2pm on February 27th, 2013. The showcase started with an informative presentation about Brazil, followed by a time for visitors to taste a wide variety of food and beverages from Brazil, such as mate tea, coffee, pao de queijo, brigadeiros, bean soup, topioca pudding and so much more. It was wonderful to hear stories about Brazil, Brazilian food and artifacts from all the volunteers staffing all the display tables in Caldwell lounge. The showcase ended with a wonderful samba demonstration after which the guests had the chance of learning a few steps of samba themselves.

To read more about the event itself, please also read the story that was published by The Technician on March 12th, 2013 – Brazilian Students Showcase Culture.

International Tea 2012

International Tea has been another magnificent OIS tradition. It started years ago as a small get together over tea and coffee, and it grew into one of the biggest international events on campus. On November 14th, 2012, the OIS sponsored an event with 12 different country or student organization participants. Students served tea, coffee, cookies and snacks from their countries, as they simultaneously hosted over 300 visitors at Witherspoon Hall.

BILLBOARD- 1920X1080

For full photo album, please visit our Facebook Album – 2012 International Education Week.

International Horror Film Festival

NC State, OIS, and UAB celebrated International Film in the most seasonally appropriate way– with an International Horror Film Double Feature! This is our second year we are featuring international horror films, and as everyone knows, sequels are always better than the originals.

Over 100 NC State students joined us to watch two internationally acclaimed international films, Let the Right One In (Sweden) and Shutter (Thailand). Both movies were shown for FREE at the Campus Cinema on the evening of October 24th, 2012. The event was preceded by a fun Halloween photo opportunity.

billboardposter