Ways JET Alums Can Help: Wear a button that says, “Ask Me About Japan”
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AS a JET alum, you know far more about Japan than most people in your country (unless you live in Japan of course). One of the really helpful thing you can do in the coming weeks and months is to help keep up awareness and understanding of Japan. Help people continue to feel connected to and empathetic toward Japan, even after the story falls from the headlines. Because support is going to be needed for a long while. This is not a short term effort.
Here’s one more way you can help:
- Wear a button (or a t-shirt or other wearable item) that simply says: “Ask me about Japan”.
- Do this not just now but in the coming weeks and months as well.
This will:
a) Keep Japan in everyone’s consciousness
b) Turn JET alums (and others who have lived in Japan) into a resource for people who want to know more about Japan, to connect with Japan, to support Japan.
This is something all JET alums can do to help.
Ways JET Alums Can Help: Make yourself available to talk to schools, churches, companies, other organizations
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AS a JET alum, you know far more about Japan than most people in your country (unless you live in Japan of course). One of the really helpful thing you can do in the coming weeks and months is to help keep up awareness and understanding of Japan. Help people continue to feel connected to and empathetic toward Japan, even after the story falls from the headlines. Because support is going to be needed for a long while. This is not a short term effort.
Here’s one more way you can help:
- Make yourself available to talk to schools, churches, companies or other organizations in your community. People do not know a lot about Japan, but many will want to know more. Put yourself out there and offer to be a link. To answer questions for students. To share some personal experiences about what it was like to live in Japan.
- Better yet, work with your local JET Alumni Association chapter and/or Japanese Consulate to make it a more organized effort.
This is something all JET alums can do to help.
Ways JET alums can help: Engage your grad school or college alumni offices
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JET alumni are helping in so many ways–fundraising, volunteering, translating, communicating, etc–that it’s hard to keep track of. (Which makes me feel prouder than ever to have served as a JET.)
If you’re looking for ways to help, here’s one more:
- Get in touch with your grad school or college alumni office.
- Let them know you’re a JET alum (you might have to explain what that is).
- Offer to be a resource for helping them to support Japan in some way. Or encourage them to do so.
Your school most likely has some form of connection with Japan. But they may not be focused on the details of what’s going on. Or how to engage their alumni in an appropriate way.
Be a resource for your school’s alumni organization. Offer to write something, to share helpful links or information, to explain things, to translate, to be a point person for reaching out to other alumni. Figure out whatever their needs (or obstacles) are in connection with supporting Japan and figure out a way to be helpful to them.
Many people who don’t have a connection to Japan want to help but may not know how. Be the person that enables them to help. And to do that, make sure you’re up to date and educated. Reading JetWit is a good start. Also check the websites of your nearest JET Alumni Association chapter as well as any other Japan-related organizations in your area.
This is a role all JET alumni can play.
Japanese Moms United – Union Square, NYC
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A group of Japanese moms in NYC held a fundraising event in Union Square on Thursday. Here’s the article along with a video worth watching:
http://www.ny1.com/?ArID=135758
Pacific Northwest JETAA – Yoku ganbatta!
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Pacific Northwest JETAA was involved in a fundraising event at Uwajimaya (the big Japanese food store in Seattle). Here’s a recap from PNW JETAA officer Shun Endo:
“I don’t have official numbers, but at the end of the day we had over $10,000 in donations! I was so moved at everybody’s concern and kindness. Even high school kids and junior high school kids were giving! People really do care, and are looking for an opportunity to give. It really moved me.”
Video: Escaping the tsunami
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Helpful info and links from the Japan Foundation (NY)
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Via Tatsuaki Kobayashi, Deputy Director General for the Japan Foundation in New York:
- The Japan Foundation New York posted the information about major sites of donation in our website. Please share the information with your friends. http://www.jfny.org/links/donation.html
- My colleagues of the Japan Foundation New York also started new web site for charity activities in New York http://nycaresforjapan.com/
- US Japan Institute, the think tank of Japanese universities coalition based in DC, will organize the seminar about earthquake. http://www.us-jpri.org/en/seminar_tanaka_0406.html
- Foundation Center also opens up information site about donation to Japan . http://maps.foundationcenter.org/japan/rss/
- USA today’s article “ US donations not rushing to Japan ” give us some insights for the reason why the Japanese efforts to get donation for tsunami is not going well. http://yourlife.usatoday.com/mind-soul/doing-good/story/2011/03/Us-donations-not-rushing-to-japan/44961802/1
- Agency for Cultural Affairs announced the brief report about the damage of cultural properties. Japanese newspapers also started to report that museums in the afflicted area also suffered a lot from the disaster. http://www.bunka.go.jp/english/pdf/2011_Tohoku.pdf
JETAA UK Fundraising Campaign
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Via JETAA National Executive Member 2010-2011, Fiona Steel.
GIVE A DAY FOR JAPAN
JET Taylor Anderson - still unaccounted for
Two U.S. JETs remain unaccounted for as of Monday, March 21 8:22 am NY time. If you have any information, please email it to jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
- Taylor Anderson
- Montgomery “Monty” Dickson
Montgomery "Monty" Dickson
Two more JETs located
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10:43 am NY time Friday Mar 18
Good JET news: Got confirmation that Jessica Besecker and Edward Clemons have been located. Here’s a Chicago Tribune article about Edward when he was still unaccounted for.
Edward Clemons in an earlier photo
JETAA Music City website launch and Bluegrass Subchapter Fundraising event
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Via JET alum Terry Vo who works at the Consulate in Nashville:
JETAA Music City (MC) is proud to announce the launching of their website www.jetaamc.org.
JETAA-MC is the newest chapter in the US that supports former JET participants in Kentucky and Tennessee. We are so thankful that we can launch in time to add another means of communication to assist Japan through this difficult time.
Our sub-chapter, Bluegrass will be having a Japan Relief Event TONIGHT (Friday, March 18) at 9pm. Please come out and support them if you can.
We hope that you will take a few moments and visit our website to see what we’re doing to educate our community about Japan and provide a place where our members can find useful information. We really appreciate all the other JETAA chapters who assisted us and have great websites that we could view while building ours.
Thank you so much for your time and I look forward to hearing from you all soon. All feedback is welcome!
Consulate General of Japan in New York Accepting Donations
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Dear all,
●The Consulate General’s account to receive financial donation: please go to the link below;
http://www.ny.us.emb-japan.go.jp/en/t/2011/110315_02.html
●The Consulate General of Japan in New York wishes to inform you that a book of condolences for the victims of the recent Tohoku-Pacific Ocean Earthquake will be open for people to express their sympathies on the following dates:
・ March 17-18 (Today-Friday): 9:30am-4:00pm
・ March 21-23 (Monday-Wednesday): 9:30am-4:00pm
The condolences book will be on the 18th floor of our offices at 299 Park Avenue.
The Consulate General of Japan wishes to extend its sincere appreciation for your kind support.
Consulate General of Japan
212-371-8222
This post was written by Sam Frank, an ALT who taught English in Hiraizumi-Cho, Iwate Prefecture from 2002-2004 and worked in Shirahama-cho, Wakayama Prefecture as a JET from 2004-2006. He currently manages the New York Division of UnRated Magazine (http://unratednyc.com) and works as a Project Manager at Arrow Root Media (http://arrowrootmedia.com).
JETAA Southeast President Theresa Kanter on public radio interview in Atlanta
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Local groups raise money for Japan relief efforts
After his hometown of New Orleans was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina the Japanese government offered material and monetary assistance that surpassed $1 million and that included tents, blankets, power generators and portable water tanks. Japan also provided $200,000 to the American Red Cross to aid hurricane victims. Now former Fukushima Prefecture, Iwaki City JET from 2007-2010 Doug Tassin is on a mission to help his former home in Japan.
The New Orleans Japan Quake Fund is currently in the process of being established. It is being formed by a coalition of New Orleans-based, Japan-related groups: Japan Club of New Orleans, Japan Society of New Orleans, jetaaNOLA (JET Program Alumni Association, New Orleans Chapter), and Japanese Garden Society. With the full support of Honorary Consul General of Japan Donna Fraiche and hopefully the endorsement of the govenor of Louisiana and mayor of New Orleans, we are creating this fund as a means for all of New Orleans to repay the generosity and care that Japan showed us in our time of need. This donor administered fund will be created through the Greater New Orleans Foundation (GNOF), and we plan to raise money in the fund and give it directly to an organization in Japan. GNOF has a long history of successfully administering funds, and we will still be able to direct where the money goes.
Click below to read the full story by Doug and see how you can make a difference. Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu.
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150159551445306
This post was written by Sam Frank, an ALT who taught English in Hiraizumi-Cho, Iwate Prefecture from 2002-2004 and worked in Shirahama-cho, Wakayama Prefecture as a JET from 2004-2006. He currently manages the New York Division of UnRated Magazine (http://unratednyc.com) and works as a Project Manager at Arrow Root Media (http://arrowrootmedia.com).
Role of JET alumni community in this crisis
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There was an article in the NY Times earlier this week saying there has not been a large response from the Japanese community in NYC, because it’s not as big as other ethnic communities in NYC and because many members are here for short periods to work for their companies, etc.
But that article didn’t understand this important fact: We–the JET alumni community of 55,000+ worldwide–we are part of the Japanese expat community.
So when the media talk about the Japanese community in the world, they need to factor in the JET alumni. Because we all have a lifetime connection to Japan no matter what else we do in life, and in our minds we are all Japanese. We are hurting like hell and we are also helping.
JET alumni are doing amazing things right now to organize and mobilize resources, funding, translations, information and volunteers. Through the JET Alumni Association. Through independent efforts. And also through the roles established JET alumni already play in myriad organizations and companies that are supporting Japan.
In addition to these efforts, part of our role as JET alumni is to engage the people around us in our home country so that they understand and feel connected to Japan. So that they understand and are aware of ways they can help. Cultural outreach is one of the most important ways that JET alumni can help right now.
Minasan, ganbatte kudasai.
