KAKEHASHI Project Welcoming Event
(November 7, 2013)
On November 7th, a welcoming event was held at Elkins Pointe Middle School for 23 middle school students visiting the Atlanta area from Iwaki City in Fukushima Prefecture as participants of the KAKEHASHI Project, a youth-exchange program between Japan and the United States. CG Sunaga attended the event and gave a speech in which he expressed his hopes that the students participating in the exchange from Japan along with the Elkins Pointe students would learn from this experience and share what they learned with their friends and family. He concluded that the students play an extremely important role for the future of Japan-American relations.
CG Sunaga's speech
Following the speech, the middle school students from Iwaki City gave a presentation introducing themselves and one of their activities, the “One Coin School Project.” The “One Coin School Project” is a project to establish schools in Thailand that they are working on in cooperation with an NPO. The students also introduced various aspects of Japan and Japanese culture such as “Beauty of Japan,” “Japanese ‘Wa’ Spirit,” “Japanese Manners,” and so on, with a series of humorous skits.
Principal Springman's speech
Near the end of the event, Elkins Pointe Middle School’s principal, Ms. Springman gave a talk about her visit to Japan over the summer through the “2013 Invitational Group Tour Program for US Educators” by the Japan Foundation. Principal Springman spoke about visiting educational institutions; areas affected by the 2011 Great East Japan Disaster, and her experience with Japanese food and culture along with her thoughts on the Japanese education system and student life. Through this visit to Japan, Principal Springman mentioned she was reminded of the importance of Japanese education programs.
Presentation by the middle school students from Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture
