An international student has opened up about the challenges and rewards of moving to Australia as a Bendigo school asks more locals to open their homes for the cultural experience.
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"My first month here was really hard because I didn't speak English, it was really hard to communicate with someone," student Jibril Krischnan Ong said.
The year 12 Bendigo Senior Secondary School student moved from the Philippines has now been in Bendigo for 18 months.
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"I am planning to stay here ... probably to get my mum (a visa to move here), because my mum is in my country."
The school is looking for more families to help six new students set to arrive in the coming semester, assistant principal Bronwyn Bishop said.
"We want the students to be put into a home where there is family life going on where they can actually be part of that family," Ms Bishop said.
"They are not a boarder, they are a member of that family so they feel at home and so they have that support of a family environment."
That sort of home would help students flourish.
A homestay family would be in charge of taking the student in as "a member of their family" and looking after them for the duration of their stay in the city.
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Ms Bishop oversees the international program and said it was designed to help young people realise there was a great big world to see and explore.
"The bigger benefit for us in the college is that we are building people's understanding of different cultures and different nationalities," she said.
"(Local students) are getting to know students from all over the world, building friendships."
Ms Bishop said the students usually studied for around two-and-a-half years at the college where they would develop their skills in English before eventually completing their VCE and potentially going to university.
The assistant principal said the school and city were home to students from China, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Iraq.
Ms Bishop said this immensely helps both the new arrivals and the local students broaden their horizons.
"Our biggest focus has been building that concept of global citizens," Ms Bishop said.
"Students here need to see that the world is their oyster and there are opportunities not just in Bendigo, not just in Victoria, not just in Australia.
"These students can build an understanding of cultural differences to minimise the effects of racism ... they are really building their humanitarian skills to be global citizens."
Ms Bishop said the school was planning on trying to expand to between 25 and 30 international students next year.
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