Living & Working in Ishikawa, Japan
This guest post is by Jeff Shieh, the CIR in Uchinada.
Acacia Romantic Festival Flyer (pdf)
Uchinada Town is holding its annual Acacia Romantic Festival on Sunday, May 15, 2011. Every year, there is a flea market and local performances. This year, in light of the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake, they have made this into a charity event, where a portion of the proceeds from the flea market will go to relief funds.
AJET has never participated in this festival before, but this year, we would like to run a small booth. For that, we need volunteers to help out!
Here are the details:
Read more of this post
From Dipika Soni, former JET, and Megan Lam, AJET Charity Representative:
Japan Volunteers is gathering information on how to help: gathering donations, volunteering, and a list of resources. See the site here.
This information comes to us from Anne, a former Ishikawa ALT.
English
The Japanese Association of Translators (JAT) is assembling a list of volunteer interpreters to help in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami disaster.
If you need an interpreter for your rescue, relief, aid or other organization, please contact someone on this list.
If you can volunteer as an interpreter, please contact webmaster@jat.org to have your name added to the list. Include the following information:
1. Full name
2. Address
3. Language pairs
4. Phone number
5. Mobile phone number
6. Skype name (if you have one)
7. Other means of communication, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
8. Extent to which you can help. (travel, tele-interpreting, etc.)
9. Any other information you feel would be useful.
日本語
災害後のボランティア通訳
JATは災害後のボランティア通訳者のリストを掲載しています。
救助、救済などのために、通訳者が必要な場合には、このリストをご利用ください。
ボランティアで通訳ができる方はwebmaster@jat.orgへご連絡ください。下の情報を含んでください。
1. 姓名
2. 住所
3. 言語 (和英、英和等)
4. 電話番号
5. 携帯番号
6. スカイプのユーサー名
7. 他の通信手段
8. どれほど助けれる (テレ通訳、旅行の可能性)
9. 他の役に立つ情報
One of the ways you can help the people by affected by the earthquake and tsunami is by donating blood. It’s free easy and you get a snack at the end of it. People who live near Kanazawa can donate blood at Labro (ラブロ) in Ishikawa Prefecture Red Cross Blood Center or 石川県赤十字血液センター (Ishikawa-ken sekijūji ketsueki sentā). Labro is open Sunday through Friday from 10:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m. and 1:20–6:00 p.m. It is closed on Saturdays.
For those who don’t live near Kanazawa, Labro has a mobile donation center that travels around the prefecture. Here are the dates and locations of the mobile center for the rest of March.
Edit: Blood donation guidelines and restrictions here.
Peer Support Group (PSG) will be hiring for the 2011-12 JET year over the
coming month. The group is looking to recruit reappointing JETs interested
in volunteering two or more nights a month to the PSG service. If you are
interested please contact the PSG National Coordinator, Em Collins at ajetpsg (at) gmail (dot) com for an application form. Please note the application
deadline is April 1st.
AJET Peer Support Group is a non-profit listening and referral service that
operates daily from 8pm until 7am. 050-5534-5566 www.ajet.net/psg
Hey JETs,
If you’re anything like me, you’re watching June creep closer and closer, and realizing that you have just over 2 months before you depart Japan. For myself, I feel like I’ve contributed a bit by starting up this blog and roping a few people into writing for it. Fortunately, the lovely Leah has agreed to take over as admin of the blog, and so we have another year of blogging to prepare for. Help her, please!
In a month or so, English-speakers all over the world are going to find out that they’ve been placed in Japan, and there’s a serious lack of up-to-date resources about what it’s like to actually live here (let alone in Ishikawa!). If you’re staying on another year, why not spend 15 minutes a week and volunteer to share your experiences on the Ishikawa JET blog? They’ll appreciate it, and you may be surprised to find out how rewarding blogging can be.
If you’ll be around for the next year (August 2010 – August 2011) and are interested in writing for this blog, click the “Contact Us” link at the top of this blog and shoot me a quick message. It’s a great way to pass on your knowledge to other people, and it’s a useful resource for those interested in learning about/coming to Ishikawa.
For those interested interested in blogging:
*Bloggers are responsible for writing 1 post a week – doesn’t have to be long! You will choose a day to post, which can be written any day and then schedule to be posted later. (In many cases, you can write your post during your down time at work.)
*You can write about any topic that interests you (that relates to being a foreigner in Ishikawa). Topics might include good restaurants, volunteering opportunities, Japanese cultural information, Japanese language information, local events, lesson ideas, etc. If you think it’s related to being a foreigner in Ishikawa, then it’s valid.
* Prior blogging experience isn’t necessary. WordPress is very easy to use (really!), and we’ll help you get started.
* You don’t have to know anything special about Ishikawa. Every day you’re learning something new, and sometimes it’s the fresh insights that are most valuable to people reading this blog.
If you’re interested (and can commit yourself), then click the “Contact Us”, and we’ll help you get started!
Photo: Anna
15 excited volunteers headed to Inamien Children’s Home in Kaga this weekend for the first of our (hopefully many) Ishikawa Volunteers orphanage visits.
Inamien is situated in the onsen town of Katayamazu, in southern Ishikawa, and houses 60 children in total, from the ages of 2 to 18. Inamien is a really bright, modern and well-resourced Children’s Home, with amazing facilities including an incredible outdoor adventure playground (which we are definitely hoping to have a go on during our next visit).
Orphanages in Japan aren’t quite the same as those you might have seen in other countries or back home. Few of the children are technically “orphans” – it’s more likely that they come from single parent families, or households which struggle to cope with their needs. Some of the children may have learning difficulties or behavioral problems, but often, as we saw on Saturday, they are just very sweet kids who are delighted to get some adult attention.
Our aims were to hang out with the kids, talk to them in English and Japanese and have fun! First, we separated children and volunteers into 3 groups. One group did drawing and coloring, which resulted in some amazing portraits of the volunteers, particularly Herbs. The second group did origami, where the adults tried and failed to match the shuriken-making skills of the Elementary kids. The third group played games with the kids, and watching Jon-Mark getting chased, caught and felled by a 5-year-old during a game of ‘Duck, duck, goose’ will be a lasting memory. After 20 minutes the children changed activities. At the end we played a game of Daruma-san ga koronda (which is similar to ‘statues’, or ‘What’s the time, Mr Wolf’).
Photo: Anna
All the resources we used at Inamien were funded by the money raised at the Ishikawa AJET Casino Night in February. Thank you Stacy and Bill and everyone who made that happen!
The kids were so happy to see us and it was a really enjoyable, feel-good way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Afterwards the Director of Inamien told us they’re looking forward to our return in May. Thanks again to everyone who came along and made our first visit a success!
We had such an overwhelming response to our request for volunteers from all over Ishikawa. As well as the 15 people who came along on the Inamien visit, we also have another 14 people who have shown interest in volunteering. The next step is to start organizing visits to orphanages in other areas of the prefecture.
If you’d like to get involved, or know of an orphanage or Children’s Home in your area then please contact Anna at volunteerishikawa [at] gmail [dot] com
For more information on Japan’s orphanages in general, go to the Smile Kids Japan website.
Photo: skycaptaintwo
Ishikawa AJET is doing a great job of raising money for charity this year — in fact, Ishikawa is on track for being one of the most charitable JET prefectures in Japan this year! Big thanks to AJET who’s been keeping the events really exciting, and this next one is no different.
Ishikawa AJET has organized a paragliding event in Hakusan on Saturday, May 15th. For this event, there are limited spots, so you must commit to trying to get as many people to sponsor you as possible. You also must make a required 7,000 yen payment for the tandem flight by March 31st.
The spots for this event are nearly full, but if you’re interested contact Anna as soon as possible, because she may be able to squeeze you in!
Rather keep your feet on the ground? They haven’t forgotten you. Mark your calendar and head over to Hakusan to cheer on your fellow JETs! There’s talk of renting cabins in Shishiku and having an ALT BBQ party (waaah, acronyms!).
Contact Anna at: volunteerishikawa -at- gmail -dot- com
Photo: iloveconor.com *Note: This is an orphanage in Korea 
If you’re feeling charitable, loving, and full of energy, there’s a great volunteering opportunity coming up. AJET has organized a trip to the Inamien Orphanage in Kaga on Saturday, March 13, 2010 from 1:30-3:00.
They’ll be playing games and doing activities with 20 elementary school aged children, and if you’ve never played with orphanage kids before, I can personally attest that it’s a lot of fun and will give you a lot of feel-good vibes, even if you don’t speak their language.
Ideally AJET is looking to go back once every 2 months, so they’d love to have a core group of solid volunteers get established; however, I’m sure the kids would be happier for you to visit them once than never at all.
Also, this event announcement was sent out to JETs, but if you’re a non-JET foreigner living in Ishikawa who’s interested in participating, you may want to contact Anna anyway! I’m betting she’d be happy you’re interested.
Interested in going? Email Anna at volunteerishikawa [at] gmail [dot] com
Photo: Muffet
Ishikawa AJET has decided to create a cookbook! The aim is to create an English cookbook full of (mostly) healthy recipes that you can easily make in Japan using Japanese ingredients and Japanese kitchen equiptment.
Got a recipe?
Guidelines:
- You need to have successfully made this recipe in Japan.
- Recipes must use METRICS. Here’s a link to a great online recipe converter.
- Simple recipes are great (ex. making miso from miso paste, making curry from curry roux) because it’s hard to find English instructions for these things.
- Please submit fairly healthy recipes.
- Please submit recipes for speacialized diets, too! (meat-free, gluten-free, lactose-free, vegan, etc.)
- Ingredients should be available to all people in Japan (even those in the remote Noto!). If you ordered an item from a particular website, please note it!
- If you can provide extra notes, please do. For example, if you know the Japanese word for an ingredient, please include it!
- The book will be in English, but if you have a recipe in Japanese and don’t wish to translate, some friendly translators have offered to do that for you.
Submit your recipes via email to: leah [DOT] zoller [AT] gmail [DOT] com. I know she’ll appreciate it!
Deadline for submissions: March 31st, 2010.
Want to help out another way?
- Volunteer to be a taste-tester! They need volunteers to try out making these recipes in their own home to be sure they’re user-friendly.
- Help out with other aspects (graphic designing, editing assistance, creating an index, etc.)
Contact Leah at: leah [DOT] zoller [AT] gmail [DOT] com
Upcoming Events
