International students and other members of the ASU community mingled among candlelit tables on the Memorial Union’s Starlight Terrace Friday night at the first-ever Global Café.

The Office of Student Engagement is hoping to make the networking nights bi-weekly after Friday’s event on the Tempe campus.

Student Engagement worked with the Office of the Vice President for Global Engagement to put on the nighttime event, which welcomed students with music, food and craft tables.

The Global Café was the first of its kind at ASU, made possible by a new programming fund for international student events, student activity adviser Manju Ramadurai said.

“The goal is to have international students and international student organizations mingle,” Ramadurai said.

Ayumi Kunihiro, a management intern for Student Engagement and a graduate student in higher and post-secondary education, helped coordinate the event and said she hoped it would regularly draw both international and non-international students.

Each café will be hosted by a different international student organization and highlight one country, Ramadurai and Kunihiro said.

The Coalition of International Students hosted Friday’s Mexico-themed event, offering traditional Mexican food and crafts.

Fabian Lenero, business and Mandarin Chinese junior and president of the Coalition of International Students, said the crafts at Global Café serve as reminders to students to learn about new cultures.

The craft he chose was the “Ojo de Dios,” or “Eye of God” from the Mexican tribe Huichol.

“[The Huichol] people have a really special craft with a really special meaning,” he said.

When a child is born into a Huichol family, Lenero said, parents make a craft with five different colors, adding one color for each year of age until the child is 5.

“When they are 5, the parents throw the craft to the sea like an offer to the gods,” he said.

As an international student from Mexico, Lenero said sharing crafts and traditions like the “Ojo de Dios” is important for building a deeper understanding between cultures.

The next Global Café is scheduled for Nov. 13.

Funding for events comes from the new Priscilla Richards Endowment.

Richards worked in the ASU International Students Office and her donation is used to continue her passion, said Sherril Tomita, who helps oversee international programming.

Tomita said the Global Café is vital to giving international students a place to share their stories with American students.

“We have so many international students,” she said. “They have a lot of expertise about their culture to share with the University at large and the ASU community.”

Reach the reporter at jessica.testa@asu.edu.