An International Festival took place Thursday, April 10 in Alumni Hall to celebrate the culture and diversity that exists at Quinnipiac University.

The event was co-sponsored by the International Club and the International Business Society. According to junior Anjali Desai, the main purpose of the event was to “get more people to learn about cultures, especially at a time like this. We want people to be open-minded.”

Aisha Khan, president of International Club, hopes students will make friends with people from foreign countries with the help of this event.

“I hope students will appreciate the diversity that they might not have experienced before,” said Khan. “We want students to experience what we experience everyday.”

Flags surrounded Alumni Hall and there was a quiz for students to take to see if they knew the world as well as they thought they did.

As part of International Week, which was from April 7-11, there were four guest speakers. On Monday, Mohammed Elahee discussed his experiences in Bangladesh and Dr. Mohammed Monshipouri also spoke. Maya Reddi was the guest speaker on Wednesday, April 9.

Many members of International club felt that the discussions were “eye openers.” Issues that were discussed were human bondage, brothels, and the fact many women in foreign countries are helpless.

While students here at Quinnipiac are worrying about an exam, people overseas worry about food and whether they will be alive in the morning.

The turnout was better than the club had expected, according to Desai. Last year a similar event was held in the cafeteria, and was co-sponsored by the International Club and SPB. This year over 175 students attended the festival.

This will hopefully start an annual International Festival at Quinnipiac. The main goal is to spread diversity on campus and increase awareness of different cultures.

Countries represented at Quinnipiac include Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Portugal, Tanzania, Phillipines, Uruguay, Brazil, USA, Poland, Italy, France, Japan, China, Korea, Sweden, Australia, Ireland and El Salvador.

International foods were also on display. Samosa-Pakera is an Indian and Pakistani food, and there was humus and pita from Syria and pork fried rice from China.

Origami was a huge success at this festival. Hide Yuki Oku, a senior, had an oragami table and helped people of all ages try to make baseball caps, birds and other origami crafts.