The international student experience has strategically transformed the internationalisation of higher education globally. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, international student wellbeing has decreased. To enhance their wellbeing, we argue international students' experience should be broadened to include community engagement, thereby increasing core capabilities for, by and with international students. Using Sen's capability approach as a conceptual framework, we conducted a study in South Australia during the height of the pandemic. Partnering with one local non-for-profit organisation, we asked: 'How have engagements with the local community affected international students' capabilities to enhance their wellbeing?' We offer critical interpretivist perspectives to report on a pilot study of 75 survey responses and 18 in-depth interviews. The findings identify diverse macro-structural forces that form a social context which has marginalised the students. Despite contingent and tenuous social relations and contexts, with support from the community outside the university, some students converted their capabilities to fortify their wellbeing. This study is critical given that the goal of re-strategising internationalisation of higher education begins from the students' needs through an effective partnership between universities and communities.