Columbia Council For Internationals

The Columbia Council for Internationals (CCFI) strengthens collaboration and understanding of Internationals and the Midlands of South Carolina through professional, educational, and cultural programs.

We offer Student Arrival Assistance for international students arriving in the Columbia area for the first time. We provide an application through our website. We offer this service to all the international students arriving at any of our colleges or universities in the Columbia area.

We participate in the International Visitors Leadership Program through the US Department of State. Visitors from other countries come for a brief stay. They participate in different workshops and meetings set up locally by CCFI.

We have a collaboration with the Columbia Museum of Art to sponsor tours of artists' exhibits for international students. The tours are offered on different dates during the academic year to allow for international student participation. Volunteers from CCFI are at the museum to welcome the students and museum docents conduct the tours.

Testimonials

The Columbia Council for Internationals (CCFI), founded in 1965, had its busiest year ever with international visitors in 2023. More than 102 international visitors visited here as US State Department-sponsored Groups, which far surpassed numbers in previous years. We hosted three large groups on Cybersecurity, two groups on Education, two groups on Government, and two groups on Domestic Violence. Additional topics were: US Foreign Policy, the Rule of Law, Women's issues, Interfaith Tolerance, Mediation, and Underserved Youth. There were 50 different countries from every continent represented. The economic impact of these visitors to the Columbia economy was more than $325,000. In addition, CCFI had a visitor from Scotland spend a week with us, as well as a visitor from one of the State Department's National Program Agencies stay for 5 days. In addition, our Program Director, Sewell Gelberd, was hosted for a week in Washington, DC, visiting relevant international agencies and the State Department promoting the city of Columbia. We look forward to an even more productive 2024.

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