International Relations Associations of Tokatsu District held FY2020 Coordinating Committee. (No.20-3)
Date & Time: 10th July(Fri), 2020 14:00～16:00
Venue: Abiko Civic Plaza, Meeting Room 1
Participants: Kashiwa KIRA(Mr.Ken Kato, Mr. Masahiko Arai)
Nagareyama NIFA(Mr.Yoichi Komiya, Mr.Yoshinao Nakahashi)
Noda NIA(Ms.Akiko Matsumoto, Mr.Yasuhiro Dei, Mr.Akio Shimokawa, Mr.Hiroshi Fukawa)
Abiko AIRA(Mr.Yasuhiko Hesaki, Mr.Koichi Murakoshi, Ms.Fumiko Kitajima, Mr.Takayuki Nakamura, Ms.Miyako Sakazume)
Observer : Matsudo MIEA(Mr. Takeshi Watanabe)
Total 15 people
The Coordinating Committee is held every May, but due to the Novel Coronavirus infection, it was held in July this year. AIRA is the manager of the Coordinating Committee this year and took over the job from Noda NIA at the meeting.
In accordance with the declaration of a state of emergency by the government basing on the “Special Measures Law against New Types of Influenza”, people were requested to refrain from going out and restricted to use some kinds of facilities. This state of emergency was effective until it was lifted on 25th May. In Abiko, public facilities were shut down until June 30th while the neighboring municipalities also took similar measures and citizens’ group activities were suspended. AIRA resumed their activities from July and held meetings. This time, Matsudo MIEA participated in the meeting as an observer.
It is expected that participation of Matsudo MIEA will be much helpful for our business management since Matsudo has a bigger organization and more contents of business.
The subjects of the meeting are (1) Introduction of all the participants (2) Account reports of FY2019 (3) Appointment of officers for FY2020 (4) Reports of the activities of each association of FY2019 as well as their action programs for FY2020.
Each association seems to have been awfully influenced by the Novel Coronavirus and all events such as Japanese language classes, foreign language classes, speech contest, international exchange with foreign countries, etc. have been suspended since the end of February.
Though each association resumed their activities from July, they are now suffering from financial problems because about a half to one third of their foreign language classes were cancelled. AIRA has yet held a general assembly this year, while some other associations held it by a written resolution or two steps methods.
With reference to the establishment of “Multi- Language Supporting Center against Disaster (tentative name)”, Kashiwa KIRA proposed that staff in charge from each association investigate the system to convey necessary information in multi languages anytime, not only at the time of disasters. Now a new lifestyle including the avoidance of the “Three C’s (closed spaces, crowded places and close-contact settings)” under “With corona” is proposed. Under such circumstances, each association hopes to discuss and study hard mutually about how to proceed from now on in order to promote the international exchange properly and smoothly. All the participants agreed with each other on this point.
(Translated by Katsumi Nakajima)
