Upstate International celebrating Diversity and Connections

During the month of March, Upstate International is encouraging residents to get involved and help celebrate our diversity and our connections as part of International Month.  They invite everyone to visit their website, www.upstateinternational.org to learn about events in the participating ten county area of the Upstate, explains Upstate International steering committee member David Esch.  “The Upstate is one of the places in the U.S. that has the highest percentage of foreign investment and therefore we have lots of people who work for companies that have international connections.  Those are everything from families, relatives and heritage to being employees at companies that ship and receive things from other countries.  So, we were thinking of some way of connecting the entire Upstate in the celebration of Upstate International during the month of March.” Upstate International Steering Committee Member Canstanzeo Nakuma tells more about the idea behind the month-long celebration.  “How to engage trailing spouses and people from other countries that are living here but who don’t have much to do when their spouses are at work and so we said what if we organized something that would give them something to do.  That was really how the idea came about and so we realized we needed to create a network of people to brainstorm further on what we really needed to do and that is how the idea was born.” Nakuma gives the mission and purpose of Upstate International. “What we are aiming to do is make available the resources that are already here.  We have many foreign companies that are here and we have a lot of international students that come to the universities here and so in terms of international, we would like to make the Upstate, given the resources we already have, a destination for people to see what it is when you embrace international.  How it can improve the quality of life and make this environment educationally rich for our children and the students who study here.”  Upstate residents are invited to visit, www.upstateinternational.org to learn more about events in the ten counties of the Upstate this month.