Local organization helps support international students in Hamilton

There are lots of new faces around Hamilton this fall as thousands of international students now call this area home to pursue their educational dreams.

And a new local organization is helping them learn how to navigate being a newcomer.

A group of international students attended a welcome orientation today, including Lucia Ramos who is from Spain.

She will be attending McMaster University to study business administration.

“I looked at the universities that we had available and McMaster seemed really nice, the campus and the city seemed really green and lovely so that is why I chose to come here,” Ramos said.

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Thadiusvi Amitabachan is from India and will also be going to McMaster University. He will be studying computer science.

“Designing user interfaces for applications and websites, so this is my goal to become a computer web designer,” Amitabachan

Ramos and Amitabachan are just two of the nearly 15,000 international students who have moved to Hamilton from all over the world to begin school here.

Today’s welcome initiative was organized by the International Student Community Collective (ISCC), a new group of leaders from McMaster University, Mohawk College, the City of Hamilton, and other local partners.

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The goal of the organization is to make it less stressful for post-secondary students as they deal with learning a new city, housing issues, and other challenges.

“They come from far away, don’t have family, networks or connections, so helping them navigate the day to day things that we as Hamiltonians and Canadians take for granted,” Yvette Pipitone from the ISCC said.

The organization says international students contribute to the expertise of the institutions they attend and significantly contribute to the local economy.