Aug 16

Ottawa JET alum Brent Stirling to visit Tohoku as part of MOFA program

Blogs, Earthquake Tsunami, Interview/Profile, JETs in the News, Notable JET Alums, Return on JET-vestment, Travel/Tourism, Volunteer, Writers Add Comment (4)

Brent Stirling (Fukushima-ken, Fukushima-shi, 2006-10)

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Ottawa based JET alum Brent Stirling (Fukushima-ken, Fukushima-shi, 2006-10) is one of only 2 Canadians out of 20 JET alumni selected to return to the Tohoku region to volunteer, engage and share their experience for the benefit of others, according to an article in the Ottawa Citizen.

(Note:  This post previously repeated the error in the Ottawa Citizen article that Brent was the only Canadian participating.  But it turns out that Toronto-based Tanya Gardecky (Miyagi-ken, Shiogama-shi) will also be participating.)

Stirling, who writes on his blog ForYourBrentertainment and was actively involved in the creation of Quakebook following the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, submitted a proposal which was accepted by the program established by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs together with the Japan Tourism Agency to bring 20 Tohoku-area JET alums back to Tohoku to play a role in helping their communities and then spread word of their experience afterwards.

Read the full Ottawa Citizen article here:   “Months of blogging leads to trip to Japan: Kanata teacher will help with disaster relief in the country he writes about”

 

 

 


4 comments so far...

  • Tanya Said on August 19th, 2011 at 11:23 am:

    Hi,
    Just thought I would let you know that the Ottawa Citizen article is incorrect. I am a Toronto JET Alum who will also be going to visit Tohoku through the same MOFA program! So there will be two Canadians. I will be going back to the Sendai City area in Miyagi-ken. :)

  • Brent Said on August 19th, 2011 at 2:44 pm:

    Hey Tanya!

    That’s great. I had told the reporter that I was the only Canadian Alum “I had heard of going back.” And the actual headline they ran in the print version was “Months of blogging leads to trip to Japan: Kanata teacher will help with disaster relief in the country he writes about” You can’t even find the article linked above on their website. All they have is this one. http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Months+blogging+leads+trip+Japan/5252829/story.html

    I assume they fact checked it and changed it. I had told the reporter she’d have to check with the embassy to make sure. I meant no offense to other Canadians who were accepted.

    Brent Stirling

  • Tanya Said on August 19th, 2011 at 3:58 pm:

    No offence taken! I wasn’t aware of other Canadians going either until I saw the article about you! I just thought I would post to let others know that there are two of us going. :)
    Good luck to you when you go in September! I’m off to Miyagi on Sunday, so I’ll let you know how it goes!

    Tanya Gardecky

  • Brent Said on August 19th, 2011 at 9:34 pm:

    Awesome, I’ll be following your blog. And given what we’ve learned, I would assume that it’s not just the two of us going. lol.

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