Multicultural experience for my students

I teach on a medium sized college campus with about 6000 students. The great majority of our students are of European descent. We do bring in 200-300 international students with the largest current contingent from Japan. We also have an aggressive plan to bring in more students from China.

My office is located on what we call the Main Street of campus. I watch out the window as groups of students pass between classes. I quite often see groups of 5 or 6 Japanese students walking, talking, laughing, and enjoying the spring weather but rarely do I see any Anglo faces in the crowd.

I need advice on how to use Web 2.0 as a component in a plan to get these groups together. The heart of the idea that is rattling around in my head is a face to face pairing of students for one hour per week in a conversational setting. We already have a program like this but I have not previously required my students to participate.

Would a social network facilitated through something like Ning enhance a program like this? Does anyone have experience with a program like this?