The 34th annual International Festival of Cultures showed Ferris students a glimpse of many different cultures from around the world on Sunday, April 7.
The festival represented cultures by having their cultural foods and presenting their cultural dances.
Executive Director of International Education Tara Braun explained the importance of showing people other cultures and gave Ferris’ international students a chance to represent where they are from.
“It is an opportunity for for the international students to have a format and display their culture, their food and share it with people,” Braun said. “It’s an opportunity for campus and the greater community to see how exactly how many countries are represented in our little area of the world.”
Many of the volunteers were international students representing their home countries.
Braun also went into detail about the international students and their importance on campus.
“We have 34 countries that are students represent,” Braun said. “They’re a resource we need to tap into and learn from.”
Accounting sophomore Adesola Ojo was glad to volunteer and represent Nigeria at the festival.
“I was really excited to join and participate in holding the festival,” Ojo said. “It’s really exciting for people to get to know that part of Nigeria.”
Students were able to walk around the David L. Eisler Center ballroom and try different foods including jollof rice from Nigeria, chicken biryani from India and bulgogi from South Korea.
A crowd of about 250 students and the Big Rapids community were provided with passports to “travel the world” and get stamps from 20 different countries, which can also included in a raffle.
Biotechnology sophomore Prasanna Maharjan helped ensure the event went smoothly as the head of the food department.
“We make sure the food and everything is authentic,” Maharjan said. “Everyone who is cooking the food is the people from that country.”
Social work freshman Analiese Mosley expressed how her first time at the festival was great.
“It was amazing. There were many varieties of food and was a lot of fun,” Mosley said. “It was nice to talk to everybody at the individual booths to get to know a little bit more about what the food was or the background behind it.”
Pharmacy junior Coco Zheng is also an international student from China. Zheng has been involved in this event before and was happy to be a part of the International Festival this year.
“It’s a good event to bring diversity to campus,” Zheng said. “Also to have our student show our cultures to the domestic students.”
CE – AM