Arrival Orientation was conducted at National Level in Delhi for 44 participants from nine countries. Arrivals of the first batch of students started from early morning of 27th June’ 2017 followed with the rest. Staffers from AFS India office with volunteers from various chapters came together to facilitate the Arrival Orientation.
The orientation has a broader vision to prepare the hosted participants with right expectation from the Program with intercultural learning. The orientation provided great opportunity make new friends and help settle in before getting into the host community. Orientation helped participant to get familiar with the supporting staff, volunteers and fellow exchange students. Orientation was fun and engaging for the Participants. It covered various activities where participants were guided by the group leaders to make sure that they understand various concepts and components of each sessions through the assistance of the leaders. Various sessions took place to focus on risk management, support structures, communication guidelines, rules, cultural differences, expectations and much more.
We had a cultural evening by the volunteers and host participants. The volunteers put up their chapter stalls to showcase their chapters cultures. They were dressed in traditional attire while they had brought yummiest delicacies from their cities to add essence to the chapter stall. Hosted students loved the snacks and delicious food and got to experience the little India presented by the volunteers. Participants also got an opportunity to interact with the volunteers and staff and get to know interesting facts and sketch about the different chapters and diverse cultures within India.
The hosted students put up performances country-wise to share information about their different countries and cultures at one platform. Many of these participants presentations were inclusive, such as singing and cultural dances, etc and other country participants also joined them which was greatly enjoyed by the volunteers and participants.
AFS India is happy to host such fun and enthusiastic group of hosted students this year and looks forward to providing them with great learning experience. We’re thankful to all the volunteers who came together to facilitate the orientation.
We had an external speaker Karolina Goswami (Polish living in India) to share her experiences of living in India as a foreigner. She gave useful tips of how our students can adjust quickly in Indian culture.