AIRA has been making a donation to the Yamashina Institute for Ornithology to support their activities to breed Short-Tailed Albatross (Aho-dori). AIRA sold “Aho-dori Manju” (aho-dori branded Japanese sweet bun) at the 25^th Abiko International Festival on November 28, 2016 and the proceeds were donated to the Institute together with private contributions made by AIRA members.

Date & Time: Saturday, December 10   2 p.m.~4:00 p.m.

Venue: Grand Hall, Abiko Civic Plaza

Guest Panelists: Ms. Ena Sano (El Salvador), Ms. Maria Theresa Ozawa (Columbia), Ms. Wasana Kida(Thailand), Ms. Zhan Hua,(張華 China), Mr. Joerg Roth(Germany)

Participants: Mr. Hesaki, chief of AIRA Volunteer Activity Dep., volunteer teachers and students of AIRA Japanese Language Course and others. 42 people in total (including 8 foreigners).

AIRA has Japanese language classes on Tuesday morning, Friday evening and Saturday morning. Volunteer teachers teach foreigners from the basic to intermediate level of Japanese in those classes.

On this day teachers held “Panel Discussion for Better Japanese Teaching” to seek for more effective teaching ways that meet foreigners’ needs.

A year-end party was held to deepen friendship among members and ordinary citizens.

A special class “Let’s experience traditional plays in Japan’s New Year Holidays” was held by the Tuesday class members as the year-end combined cession. The class was opened by an explanatory speech by Ms. Y. Watanabe, saying “We celebrate Oshogatsu, New Year, in January in Japan. Today we wish you would enjoy kids’ plays in the Oshogatsu season.” The program proceeded as follows:

The Memorial 25^th Abiko International Festival

The 25^th Abiko International Festival took place at Abiko Civic Plaza on the last Sunday of November. Co-hosted by AIRA and Abiko City, which has been trying to make Abiko a more foreigner-friendly city, the festival was held to provide opportunities for locals and foreigners to communicate each other. There were various events in the festival: Performances in the hall, shops of ethnic folk crafts and foods in the gallery, Japanese tea ceremony in the lobby, Kimono-dressing experience for foreigners in the Japanese room, etc.