Asahi Orange School Entrance Ceremony

The 2011 Asahi Orange School Entrance Ceremony was held in the same hall for 120 of its elementary, junior high and high school students on April 9th.

As the parents watched over the new students, they enthusiastically introduced themselves as their (homeroom) teachers read off their names one-by-one.

The Asahi school has a proud history that spans 42 years. Students attend the school every Saturday while also attending their regular schools during the rest of the week. Students go through the equivalent of one year’s worth of studies in Japan in time for their graduation, 42 class days later.

From here, Asahi School students are also scheduled to take part in activities such as sports festivals and speech contests.

Okano Visits Japan Part 2

This week we follow Shinichiro Okano as he travels by car, 30 minutes from Sendai station to the town of Arahama. On March 11th, a 10-meter tall tsunami devastated the town. That tsunami instantly swept away most of the town’s neighborhoods.

It’s been 3 weeks since that tsunami hit and the police and military are hard at work on the cleanup efforts. But other than that, there is also a league of young volunteers working hard to clean up the neighborhoods. Okano met with many of the young volunteers from the UCCJ Tohoku Disaster Relief Center, and the group’s director Taku Noda. Every morning they meet to talk about their plans and what they’ve noticed while out in the field.

Because there has been a rise in crimes since the tsunami, many of the townspeople are still wary of large trucks, so volunteers from the support center travel long distances to these neighborhoods by bike with hopes of subsiding these fears. On the day that Okano met with them, they were helping to remove mud and dirt that had been washed in from the tsunami.

The young volunteers today continue to lend a steady hand. And with the deepening of the ties between them and the community, Arahama’s reconstruction is certainly in progress.

Viet Love For Japan

On April 8th, the Vietnamese community in Little Saigon held a charity concert for the Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami victims. Ylan, a Vietnamese Singer organized this event.

The concert lasted for 7 hours and 60 active Vietnamese artists performed on stage. Around 4,000 people stopped by and the volunteers went around collecting relief money.

The event raised close to $250,000 that will go to the Orange County Chapter of the American Red Cross designated for the Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami Fund.