The Nova Scotia International Program started with just one young man from Taiwan who came to study at Park View Education Centre.
20 years later, the province plays host to over 1,200 students each year, including over 200 on the South Shore.
The South Shore’s co-ordinator of the program, Mitch Landry, says NSISP doesn’t just benefit the international students who come here, it helps local kids too.
“They’re getting an international perspective, a different world point of view of things they’re speaking about in the classroom or even just socially at lunch time at recess or after school.”
He says the world is becoming increasingly globalized and that rural students need to learn about different cultures.
“For our students whose parents often have lived in their communities generations, this is a very important program for them for us, for our students because they will absolutely have to interact in a world that’s global in nature.”
There are economic spinoffs to the program as well.
Landry says the program brings about 1.2 million dollars to the South Shore each year.
Students come from all over, including countries like Japan, Mexico, Germany, and Turkey.
Some choose to stay a month, a semester, a full school year, and some even come back for multiple school years, finishing their high school education in Canada.
They live with a ‘homestay’ family where they’re treated as one of the family – gaining siblings from Nova Scotia or even other countries if parents decide to take on multiple international students.
Some choose to attend post-secondary school here afterward and a handful are working to become Canadian citizens.
For the 20th anniversary of the program, Landry is encouraging homestay families and former students to share their stories and experiences on the NSISP Facebook page.
If they stayed on the South Shore they can post on the local one.
There’s also a province-wide video contest going on.
Homestay families can enter a video on the NSISP Facebook page, explaining what being a homestay family means to them and why they would like to see a particular student again.
The winner will get a trip for two to visit the student’s home country.
Runners up will have the student flown to Nova Scotia to visit them again.
For more information click here.