TED JETs: Chris Broad on being a vlogger (a word he hates)
Notable JET Alums, TED JETs, Video 
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Posted by Tom Baker
JETs tend to be interesting people. After all, every one of them has relocated to a different country at least once. It’s not surprising that many of them have also had other interesting experiences, some of which lead to insights that they end up sharing in TED talks.
This is part of an occasional series on current or former JETs who have given TED talks. Here is JET alum Chris Broad talking about his experience of becoming a YouTube star:
Japan Local: Omagari All-Japan National Fireworks Competition 2016
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Mel T (Aomori-ken, 2007-2012) is a Canadian living and working in Towada City, Aomori. For more information about events, sightseeing, restaurants, etc. in Towada City, and around Aomori Prefecture & Japan, visit her blog at http://towada-city.blogspot.com.
Every August, fireworks masters from across Japan compete in an impressive music and pyrotechnics show at the All-Japan National Fireworks Competition (Omagari Fireworks) along the Omono River in Daisen City, Akita Prefecture. This year marks the 90th anniversary of the event. Click HERE to read MORE.
Japan Local: Tohoku Rokkon (Six Souls) Festival
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Mel T (Aomori-ken, 2007-2012) is a Canadian living and working in Towada City, Aomori. For more information about events, sightseeing, restaurants, etc. in Towada City, and around Aomori Prefecture & Japan, visit her blog at http://towada-city.blogspot.com.
The Tohoku Rokkon (“Six Souls”) Festival is a two-day event where you can see six major Tohoku area summer festivals (one from each prefecture) all in one place!
It was created to encourage the revival of the Tohoku area after the Great East Japan Earthquake & Tsunami of 2011. This year marks the sixth and final year of the event. It will be held in Aomori City from June 25-26, 2016.
As part of an occasional series, Sheila Burt (Toyama-ken, 2010-2012) will begin profiling JETs who are or were in some way involved with rebuilding efforts in the Tohoku region. The inaugural post is about Jessie Zanutig (Gunma-ken, 2009-12), who founded 3,000 Letters to Japan, an international letter exchange project aimed at lifting the spirits of students who are living in the communities hardest hit by the disaster. Burt is currently a freelance journalist and English teacher in Matsuyama City, Ehime-ken. Read more of her reporting at her blog, Stories from the Inaka.
Zanutig’s home full of letters.
Jessie Zanutig was in the middle of celebrating her junior high school students’ graduation at a small restaurant in Kawaba Village, Gunma Prefecture, when the earthquake struck. Buildings in her tiny mountainous town in northern Gunma shook violently, but her town was thankfully safe from the tsunami that was about to ravage several coastal communities in northeast Japan.
As Gunma residents banned together in the next few weeks to send supplies to neighboring Fukushima-ken, Zanutig began to correspond with a Canadian friend who was living in Ishinomaki, one of the hardest hit towns in Miyagi Prefecture, to learn more about the situation. Her friend’s boyfriend, who is Japanese, lost his father in the tsunami and was struggling with the sudden loss of a family member.
“I was in contact with her a lot to make sure she was OK. Her students were having a really hard time,” Zanutig, 28, remembers. “I thought, ‘I want to help but there’s nothing I can do.’ So I asked her, ‘If I just collected a few letters from friends and family, do you have a few students you can give them to?’” Read More
Students from Taylor and Monty’s high schools to visit the US
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The below article appeared recently in the US-based Japanese language newspaper Frontline. Thanks to a helpful, bilingual JETwit supporter for sharing this and providing a summary in English:
“It basically says that 1,000 high school kids from 40 schools in the US will visit Japan in three groups from June 10th to the end of July. The group will include students from Taylor and Monty’s alma maters. They will do volunteer work in Tohoku and will visit Ishinomaki and Rikuzentakata (you can see the reference to Taylor, Monty, & JET in the third paragraph). The three main groups will evidently break up into smaller groups of 25 while in Japan and will move around among visits to places like temporary housing and volunteer work sites, and they are planning to visit Fukushima-ken to conduct radiation testing on newly harvested produce (that’s really interesting). They will also visit Kobe to see the recovery there from the Hanshin earthquake.”
★ 米高校生ら1000人、被災地へ 10日から訪日、交流
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東日本大震災からの復興に取り組む日本の姿を自分の目で確かめようと、米国の高校生ら約1000人が10日から７月下旬にかけ、３グループに分かれて訪日する。それぞれ約２週間滞在し、岩手、宮城、福島、茨城４県でのボランティア活動などを通じて被災地の人々と交流を深める。国際交流基金が主催する招待プログラムの一環。2005年の大型ハリケーン「カトリーナ」など、過去に自然災害に見舞われた地域を含む全米の40校が参加者を送り出す。外国青年招致事業（JETプログラム）で訪日中に震災の犠牲となった英語指導助手テイラー・アンダーソンさん＝当時（24）、バージニア州出身＝と、モンゴメリー・ディクソンさん＝同（26）、アラスカ州出身＝の出身校の生徒も訪日し、２人の赴任先だった宮城県石巻市と岩手県陸前高田市を訪れる予定。参加者は25人単位で行動。一部は岩手県久慈市で仮設住宅を訪問し、震災当時や避難生活の話を聞く。宮城県気仙沼市で津波被害を受けた海岸を地元ボランティアとともに清掃したり、福島県天栄村を訪れ収穫した農作物の放射線量を測定したりすることも計画されている。全ての参加者は神戸市にも足を運び、阪神大震災から復興を遂げた街の様子も視察する。（共同）
