Four new Japanese volunteers to boost education revolution

On June 19, 2007 four new Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV) volunteers arrived in St.Vincent and the Grenadines. These volunteers will be assisting St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ educational system in the field of Home Arts, Early Childhood Education and Nursing Disabled Children.{{more}}

The four volunteers are Sumiko Ito who will be assigned at VINSAVE, Yoshie Takemoto assigned at Roving Caregiver’s Project, Haruka Kakuwa assigned at North Union Secondary School as a Home Economics teacher and Mayumi Kaneko assigned to the St. Benedict’s Children Hospital as a specialist in caring for Disabled children.

The JICA/JOCV St.Vincent and the Grenadines office have been dispatching volunteers to this country since July 2003. At present there are twelve JOCV volunteers in St.Vincent and the Grenadines.

On Friday the 29th of June 2007 these new volunteers along with three other volunteers, Tatsumi a mathematics teacher at the Girls’ High School, Aoyama a science teacher at the St. Vincent Grammar School and Kanako Ono a Community Development Officer working with VINSAVE in Byera, made a presentation on the culture of Japan at the Girls’ High School.

The presentation involved teaching of the Japanese language, teaching the students Japanese games as well as the paper craft Origami which is a traditional Japanese art that is said to improve a persons ability to concentrate.

The Japanese culture was brought to life as the volunteers came attired in the casual national dress of the women of their country called a Yukata. The students were given the opportunity to learn about the food, dress, currency and even the geography of Japan. The excitement on their faces was easy to see as they learnt how to use chopsticks and have their names written in Japanese.

The students also got to see a popular Japanese movie subtitled in English.

Masahiro Tatsumi coordinator of the event and also a teacher at the school will complete his contract of two years and will return to Japan this month. The main purpose of this event he said was to give his students the chance to learn about the culture of his country and also it was a great opportunity for the new volunteers to interact and share within the classroom environment.