UFOP´s Welcome Project began in 2014, when a team of volunteer students were selected to support the International Office (DRI) on assisting the foreign students. It was inspired in diverse “buddy programs” maintained by many universities around the world, composing the UFOP growing internationalization effort.

As Welcome’s first action, it was organized the Exchange Students Guide, available at this link, in order to provide information either for those students and researchers who are planning to come to the UFOP and for those who are already here.

Going beyond the purpose of the guide, the volunteers keep regular contact with the foreign students, since their acceptance. Then, they constitute a social network that links the foreign students to the academic community, but also to the culture, to the people and to the places surrounding it.

The project has a biannual calendar of events, available at this link, that offers special cultural activities for the foreign students, and starts with a Welcome Meeting on the beginning of the semester, when volunteers and DRI staff present themselves. The meeting is an important opportunity for the foreign students to overcome language barriers and get help from the volunteers about the enrollment bureaucracy and the stay in the city.