• July Oshaberikai
• Special Program for Tohoku JETs: You can go home again!
• JETAA Q&A Night
• News from Japan
• July Oshaberikai

We’re back on schedule for the Oshaberikai! Our next monthly get together will be Wednesday July 6th at Coo Izakaiya in Civic. Please RSVP with me at imoriyama05@yahoo.com so that we can get an accurate head count.

I’ve invited Sam and Michael the new JETs soon to be braving the weird wonderfulness of Japan, so we need members to come out and school these youngins. Don’t forget to RSVP with me!
Special Program for Tohoku JETs: You can go home again!

At Steph’s request I am reposting the information I sent out in the special bulletin earlier today.

Those who spent 2+ years in Tohoku TAKE NOTE!

Dear JETAA members,

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Japan Tourism Agency has arranged for a special program to be introduced whereby members of the JET Alumni Association can travel to Japan’s disaster areas for one week.

The following conditions apply:

• The JETAA member must have worked for 2 years + as either an ALT or CIR in Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima Prefectures or Sendai city and will travel back to that area
• There are no limits for age
• They must be able to directly contact a school and local government to where they were assigned
• They have to be accepted by the organisations where they worked and be able to arrange some exchange activities with that organisation
• They have to be able to travel to Japan without an escort
• Be able to send out the information on their experiences of their stay and their viewpoints on the visit to the mass media, blogs, homepages and face book
• The stay is for one week during the period of July to September (at a time nominated by the successful candidate)
• It begins with a stay in Tokyo for one night, then 3-4 nights in the former contracting organisation and one night at a neighbouring tourist site. Unfortunately the stay is restricted and it is not possible to continue a holiday in Japan after completing the program
• The Japanese government will cover the international flight expenses, travel expenses in Japan, stay and meals, insurance etc
• The expenses the participant would need to cover are travel expenses in your home country, individual expenses eg phone calls etc- this is all outlined in the application documents available from me or the consulate.

The basic idea of the program is to have past jets visit their area, interact with their former contracting organisation, students and teachers, and then share that experience with people back in their home country.

The deadline for submissions is July 20.

I’ve sent around the original e-mail which should have the paper work attached.

JETAA Q&A Night:

As we do every year we will be hosting a small Q&A session for our departing JETs.

If you are interested in helping out this year, please let me know ASAP.

We’re going to try to get something together in the next couple of weeks.

News from Japan

Hot n’ Sticky

“Japan sweats out summer in shadow of nuclear crisis. 

Foreign Policy Magazine’s Analysis of the Disaster.

“After centuries of earthquakes, tsunamis, war, and a long list of other disasters, natural and unnatural, the Japanese people are accustomed to building back stronger — but how do they recover from such a devastating blow, and what will that new future look like?

Have a great week!

ACG

Adam C. Gastineau

President JETAA Canberra