Leaders of Japanese language volunteers working for international exchange associations in Tokatsu District had a meeting to exchange their activity reports and relevant problems. AIRA is the leader of the group in FY2023. (No.23-10)
Date & time: Saturday, July 22nd, 2023 13:30～16:30
Venue: Abiko Civic Plaza Meeting room No.1
Participants: 22 people
Matsudo International Exchange Association (MIEA) Matsudo City Japanese Language Volunteer Group
Kashiwa International Relations Association (KIRA) Japanese Language Committee
Noda International Association(NIA)/ Nagareyama International Friendship Association(NIFA) Inzai City International Friendship Association(IIFA)/
Abiko International Relations Association(AIRA)
The Japanese Language Volunteers Network Meeting is held every year by each association on a rotation basis. From this year, Inzai City International Friendship Association(IIFA) joined newly and the face-to-face meeting was held after four years.
Following the short speech by Mr.Saruwatari, Director of AIRA Volunteering Department, each association reported about their activities. While watching the situation of coronavirus infection in the early FY2023, each association seems to have struggled with how to recover their conventional works or how to incorporate new activity forms such as online classes. Many of their efforts and the state of trial and error were common and informative to each association. The followings are the common problems discussed by them.
① How to keep Japanese language volunteers--- The number of volunteers does not increase due to the coronavirus infection and aging while the necessity for supporting foreigners is increasing. It is required to bring up human resources by holding training lectures, etc.
➁ Face-to-face classes and online classes--- Both have advantages and some associations are effectively using them. Further creativity will be required to continue successfully.
③ Supporting the children of foreign families--- Requirements for their support are increasing and it is an essential issue how to tie up with schools and/or the board of education.
It is not easy to solve the problems, but it was successful to share the problems among all the associations at this meeting. Also, this meeting will function as a network where all the associations can share the hints and ideas of activities. At this meeting, all the participants acknowledged the necessity to continue to cooperate among the volunteers in Tokatsu District.
(translated by NAKAJIMA Katsumi)