Madiya Bano

Welcome Newcomers Initiative (WNI) aims to engage International community, especially international students in my country through discussions over contemporary challenges faced by people in here and in their countries.

The objectives of this initiative were to engage newcomers and to make them feel comfortable in a foreign country and educate local people on the benefits of intercultural integration. We initially started with weekly discussions on contemporary global issues concerning socio-economic and political subjects and challenges faced by people such as hunger, poverty, climate change, human rights violation, migration, inequalities in income, education, health and opportunities in their respective countries.

At present, we have members from countries like Afghanistan, Cambodia, Nepal, Nigeria, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. As more and more people joined, we decided to setup country wise forums so that students from different countries reach out to the people from their respective countries to assess their needs or difficulties. To help people, we started with fund-raising campaigns in our universities, for instance, if someone was not doing well financially, we would help them setup a sustainable local business to help them be financially stable. Currently, we are raising funds for the surgery of a young girl from Afghanistan. Recently, we helped a Kyrgyz national to return to his country after he lost his passport during a conference in Hyderabad. We also had a marathon to raise awareness and welcome people from diverse backgrounds.