Monday, May 22, 2006

NCC volume5---May

North Central College
Volume 5 --- May



1 World Relief
Every year more than 7,000 refugees come to the United States to escape from war, torture and persecution. They have no food, money, job, or friends, they may not be able to speak English; they have absolutely nothing. As you can imagine, this is a huge burden on the refugees.
The World Relief center located in Aurora, it works work with churches, individuals, and community groups in providing a range of services to the refugees and immigrants living in Dupage or Kane County. According to the website, World Relief provides the refugees with many services such as self sufficiency aid in their transition from their country to the U.S., a child and youth project helping the family and children cope with their new life, a human service liaison, meaning helping them attain access to public benefits, counseling, adequate education in order to learn how to be more self efficient, citizenship and immigrant services, transitional housing, and helping the families build a relationship with volunteers and churches. Each service helps these immigrants and refugees in adjusting to their new life.
I am working with the refugee K-3 kids after school from 3:15 P.M to 5:15 P.M at Davis Church located in Aurora every Monday. Basically I am helping with their homework, singing English songs, and playing word games to help their development of English.
Helping the refugees not only makes me a better person, but I also get the chance to be there and see how the children live their life. It gives me an idea of what they went through to be here today with us in the United States. I hope that in the near future more volunteers take time to help the refugee kids and their family as well for the better life here. A little help can make a difference in the refugee’s life. In Japan we do not have opportunities to know about these problems well, so I hope I can inform my friends. Definitely, I will continue this volunteer work until I go back to Japan.


2 First Exchange student from North Central
Hey! All of members of the English department!! Rejoice at the GOOD news!!! The first exchange student from North Central College is coming to our University!!!! (Yeeeeeh☆)

Name: Amy Butcher
Sex: Female
Age: 21
Grade: Junior
Major: Japanese
Minor: East Asian Study
Interests: Viola, Gospel, IWATE
Favorite movies:Serenity, LOTR, Donnie Darko, Love Actually, Harry Potter, The Dark Crystal, Ladyhawke, UHF, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Moulin Rouge, Watership Down
Favorite books:Dune, LOTR, The Dark is Rising Sequence, Ender's Game, Harry Potter, The Things They Carried, The Once and Future King

☆★Short Questionnaire★☆
Q1. How long are you studying Japanese?
I am studying Japanese 2 years.
Q2. Why were you interested in Japan?
I like challenging hard things. Japanese is totally different from English so I wanted to try. Also I am interested in Japanese culture.
Q3. What do you want to do in Iwate?
I want to see 石割桜.
I want to try わんこそば.
I want to make many friends in Iwate.
I want to try various kinds of fish. I love Sushi!
Q4. Do you have any concerns?
I want to make many friends in Iwate University, but I cannot speak Japanese well. So I am worrying about whether I can make friends or not. Also I want to do some kind of job, like teaching English to little kids or something like that.

☆★Message from Amy★☆
はじめまして。私はブッチャー・エミーです。三年生です。せんこうは日本語と東アジア学です。私のしゅみはビオラをひくことと、歌をうたうことです。私はドッググルーマーです。5年やっています。早く日本に行きたいです。楽しみです。友達をたくさんつくるぞー。やったー。


This is a GREAT opportunity for us to practice English with a native English speaker, make an American friend, and share Japanese culture to foreigner. I am so excited to meet her in Iwate University. She is a Great and Sweet girl and she wishes to make many friends in Iwate! I want her to make many Japanese friends and enjoy feeling cultural differences as I am doing here.

Monday, May 01, 2006