Thank you for your continued support of The Denver International Program (DIP) over the last 31 years. As you know, DIP is a non-profit organization whose mission is to build understanding among people and nations through professional training and cross-cultural exchange. DIP has facilitated the exchange of vital skills and cultural perspectives to international professionals since 1979 with the generous support of the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work.

DIP has brought hundreds of mid-career professionals from more than 80 countries to Denver. Participant's careers have been as varied as their cultures - including social work, wastewater management, education, low-income housing, transportation infrastructure, and much more. (1979 Helga Tomek from Germany...1985 Kwan Lei Chan from Hong Kong...1992 Libuse Durdova from Chech Republic...2007 Edmond Borteye from Ghana....and our last participant 2010 Nargiza Tulaganova from Uzbekistan). Participants have completed a vast array of internships and lived with volunteer hosts.

Since first hosting in 1981, the Kester family enjoyed having many different participants from various countries in their home...learning about each participant's home country and making friends from around the world. Hundreds of other Colorado families have also generously shared their lives and homes with our participants. Thank you.

While in Denver, participants have shared their unique professional and cultural perspectives during "Fireside" presentations, offered to the Denver community at no charge.

At this time, as many organizations are struggling - so is DIP. The Board of Directors of the Denver International Program has thus made the difficult decision to permanently close DIP's doors. There are several reasons, including the state of the global economy (both here and abroad), the lack of applications received for participants, and the increased needs of other non-profits locally. We believe that the decreased number of applications is largely due to changing lifestyles, and the fact that the world is now "smaller" with international travel more accessible than ever. In the future any interested participants may continue to use our parent organization, CIPUSA, for placement in another program in the U.S.

We would like to celebrate our successes and thank everyone for their involvement in DIP. Please join us for a celebration on September 8, 2010, at Craig Hall on the DU campus. More information to follow as the event gets closer! Also, we will continue to coordinate DIP's "Supper Club" - an opportunity to taste international cuisine at local restaurants on a monthly basis.

Thank you for your support of the Denver International Program - a great local organization that has made a world of difference for people around the globe.