Hosts

An Opportunity for Winnipeg hosts

  • To get to know people from other countries, cultures and ways of life
  • To walk with international university students trying to make their way in a different land with different (and sometimes seemingly strange) customs
  • To enjoy eating and chatting together, learning from each other

The situation:

International Students arrive in Winnipeg each year, ready and eager to study, achieve a degree, and make a future for themselves.

  • They come with high expectations, often high levels of anxiety, and many questions.  How will they fit into the community?  How will they survive the very different history and culture?  Who do they talk with about their experiences, their questions?
  • International Student Connections helps international students integrate into Winnipeg through the experience of family life. It also helps the students, through integration, to be better able to continue and complete their studies.
  • And it seeks to introduce hosts to a rich range of cultures, languages, and practices.

We hope all participants will benefit.

Where did this idea come from?

This program is built on two similar programs running in the UK.

  • The first, running for some 25 years now, is at Durham University in the UK.
  • The second is ‘Bristol Voices’, at Bristol University in the UK.

Here’s how it works

  • International Students, and those interested in hosting them, are invited to register to take part in this program.
  • We will contact those who register to be hosts, to talk with you about how it works, the roles and responsibilities of both host and student, and answer any questions you may have.
  • Assuming you are satisfied, you will then be paired with an international student. (If you say you are happy to be paired with more than one, an attempt will be made to do that, provided there are more students than we have hosts.)
  • Ηosts and matched students will gather early in the fall term for the initial introduction. (We had originally planned for Monday 21 September, but the students have not yet had enough time to settle in, begin classes, and learn about the ISC program. The launch will now be in early October.) Hosts and matched students will be notified of the exact date and time closer to the launch.
  • Thereafter, the host will set an additional plate at their table for two more meals in the fall term, and three in the winter term, of the academic year, inviting the student to join them. (Hosts are welcome to invite the student for more meals if they so choose, but 2 in the first term and three in the winter term are expected.)
  • It may be helpful, but not expected, that you welcome the student, should they so choose, to bring with them to those ‘home’ meals one other international student. (Note: this is purely to afford the student a sense of safety and confidence, knowing they are not alone in going to a strange home.)
  • Hosts will be responsible for ensuring the student(s) get safely from the university or residence to the home of the host and back again. (Note: This does not mean the host must pick up and return the student, but only be responsible for the safe and secure passage to and from the student’s home.)

Hosts may, should they so choose, invite the student to join them in visiting and participating in other places and activities in Winnipeg. Any such optional invitation should never take the place of the meal with the family.

This pairing will continue for the academic year (ending mid-April 2027), though the host and students may continue beyond that as friends if they so wish.

At the end of each term, there will be an opportunity for hosts and students to provide feedback, so that the program may be improved to better meet the needs of both hosts and international students.

If you would like to discuss this opportunity further before you register to take become a host, you can contact me at ray.temmerman@gmail.com, or via WhatsApp at 204 881 8274.

If you would like to become a host (and we hope you will) and enjoy the rewards of the program, please go to the registration page found at https://tinyurl.com/4chpfezf.

Only those who register will be able to participate in the program.
Thank you, and I hope you will join us in this project.