Hi everyone,
Happy New Year. Hope you all had lovely holidays and are feeling refreshed :-) Big news for the New Year!

We are starting Orphanage visits in Ono! D'Arcy and Greg are going to be running the show so a huge thank you to them for being so great. I just called them and they are super excited about our visits.

So, we need to know who wants to volunteer in Ono :-) I think we are going to be aiming for a visit every two months with lots of people rather than monthly with a handful of people. The dates wont clash with Fukui Shi or Tsuruga orphanage visits wherever possible :-)

If you are interested please send me a mail

Love as ever
Mike
ps I also mentioned to them about the 7 man from MYC and they seemed really blown away so well done everyone again :-)

Hi everyone,
Just to announce that Conor Mooney is going to be taking on the job of Southern Orphanage Rep :-) Huge thanks to David for all his hard work over the last year and a half, and to Conor for taking on the role!

Please can anyone who has yet to visit in Tsuruga and would like to get in contact with Conor. He will be contact you soon with the date for the next visit. I know the south rocks so I don't really need to ask, but please support him as much as you can and help make the visits even better :-)

Thank you all so much for all your support,
Mike

Hello team,

After the last orphanage visit a couple of people were asking me a little about what was happening with the money from the MYC auction so thought I would stick a post up here so that everyone knows what is what :-)

We raised a lot of money, and it is going to be split evenly over the five orphanages in Fukui Ken. We currently visit Fukui Shi, and Tsuruga, with Ono starting this month, but in addition to these three there is an orphanage in Takefu and one in Sabae. The kids at these two are obviously just as in need as those at orphanages we visit, so we are going to divide the money between all the homes.

From there, it is a mixture of the home's and our wishes as to how the money is spent. They obviously now far more than we do what is really needed so their opinion is crucial, however obviously we have ideas on how to spend the money too. In Fukui Shi we have settled for vacuum cleaners - their choice, and a basketball net - our choice. The cleaners will make day to day life better for the kids - saves them from cleaning with clothes like at school, and the basketball net will give them a new toy to play with. I will talk to the other homes once we actually have the cash all collected, so please pay up ASAP!

Thank you again for all your fundraising, you all rock
Mike
ps if you ever have any questions about money or indeed anything please mail me at fjetvolunteer @ gmail dot com anytime :-)

Our own Volunteer Coordinator Mike has made some amazing progress with a project that many FJET members participate in. You can read more about it at their new website http://www.smilekidsjapan.org/.
From the website:
We are a recently formed small non-profit group. Our aims are to
* Promote awareness of orphanages across Japan, especially amongst the foreign communities.
* Encourage these communities to set up regular volunteer visits.
* Help show these volunteers how this is possible, with hints, tips, and an overview of everything from setting up the first meeting to keeping up volunteer motivation.
* Ultimately we are aiming for every orphanage in Japan to have a two hour visit once a month.

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2009 Leavers' Issue.pdf (4.6 MB)