Justin’s Japan: Earthquake and Tsunami Update ~ JET Alumni Aid and What You Can Do
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People take shelter as a ceiling collapses in a bookstore during an earthquake in Sendai, northeastern Japan March 11, 2011. (Reuters/Kyodo)
By JQ magazine’s Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02) for Examiner.com. Visit his page here to subscribe for free alerts on newly published stories.
Friday’s Sendai Earthquake and Tsunami has devastated Japan, with Prime Minister Naoto Kan calling it the most difficult crisis for the nation since World War II. At this time, the death toll is expected to exceed 10,000, and the country’s workers are racing to prevent a nuclear crisis in the wake of aftershocks.
Helping those affected are participants of Japan’s international education exchange initiative the JET Program, along with its alumni association here in New York (of which this reporter is a member). Another member, Brooklyn resident Steven Horowitz, serves on JETAA New York’s board of directors and is the founder of JetWit.com, a global JET alumni resource site now featuring a significant stream of relief and support efforts updates via its 55,000 members worldwide.
“My goal is to make information available to people that might not be able to find it elsewhere, or in English,” said Horowitz, who worked on JET as English teacher in Aichi Prefecture in the 1990s. “JETs are ideal conduits for information, because so many JETs and JET alums are great at absorbing Japanese information and putting it out there in English through social media and other ways.”
While no integrated system has been set up at this time to accept donations in Japan, Horowitz has been sharing ways people can help, whether they’ve lived in Japan before or just have a desire to help.
“Since JetWit is a central communication platform for the JET alumni community, I’m trying to gather and disseminate as much information as possible,” Horowitz explained. “I’m doing my best to support the efforts of the Japanese government and disseminate the information to people who might need it.”
Click here for a listing of donation resources.
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