My International Friendship Club Experience
International Friendship Club is one of my favourite activities at school. International Friendship Club is a lunch-hour club where we can meet new people and do things like watch movies together, try new foods from other cultures, and give suggestions of things we want to do as a club. Not many schools that I know of do this and I'm very thankful that my school does.
One thing that inspired me to start going to International Friendship Club was some international students I met in one of my classes. A second thing is that, through my activities with Blind Beginnings, I have had the opportunity to meet other visually-impaired people who are from other countries. A year and a bit ago, I started learning Spanish. It got me more and more inspired to make friends from abroad which added to my interest of joining the club.
One of my favourite experiences at International Friendship Club is the students getting to meet a blind person for the first time. For the countries that many come from, most likely, they have never seen blind people before. If they have, they don't see them in school. Coming to Canada, they get a different perspective of how being blind has potential in life. I was able to give a a couple of Blindness Q and A sessions where I got students to either ask questions anonymously or just ask the questions out loud. One presentation was in one of my classes where many of my international student friends participate, and one was to the club. The presentation to my class went very well and resulted in me making some new friends from Brazil, inspiring me even more and making me want to learn Portuguese as well as continuing to learn Spanish. The presentation to the club didn't have a lot of attendees because it was right after the winter holidays, so this was going to take a few sessions.
I've made some local friends that have the same interest in going to this club. This really helps me make friends as I get to hang out with their friends that they've made here. Through meeting international students, I see a different perspective of life. I'm exposed to different cultures and because of this and more, it makes me feel so satisfied: satisfied because they get to have a friend who is blind, and satisfied because I get to have friends abroad. I feel as though not many people want to hang out with international students because they have to leave, but I'm not like those people. I take the risk even if it's short-term, because if they don't have friends who are from the area that they are in, they will not be able to fit in. Also, being friends with them makes me really feel like I can be myself.
by Alethea