12.04.09
by

Report from the EWCA Okinawa Chapter

Shurijo Castle Park at Naha, Okinawa

1. Recruiting EWCA Okinawa Chapter members who will join the 2010 EWC/EWCA 50th anniversary Int. Conference in Honolulu, HI

It’s a custom for the members of the Okinawa Chapter to join the 2010 EWC/EWCA international conference every time. The 50th anniversary is a very important event, so it has been decided to call and get much more members to participate in the conference this time.

2. Scholarship Fundraising

The EWC alumni of the Okinawa Chapter planned to set up its own scholarship fund to send Okinawan people to the EWC and have collected a certain amount of money from the alumni up to today.

We understand that the center celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2010 and the Obuchi Scholarship which was founded by the joint work of the EWC and the Okinawa prefectural government in Japan celebrates its 10th anniversary in the same year. We would like to express our gratitude to the East West Center for its good support paid to Okinawan people. We’ve considered that it might be a good idea to donate that amount of money collected primarily for creating a scholarship fund to the East West Center to show our thankfulness for its great help to improve Okinawans’ academism and professionalism.

3. Planning to hold a commemorative symposium on the 10th anniversary of the Obuchi Scholarship

The EWC made a great contribution toward establishing the Obuchi Scholarship aiming at developing the human resources in Okinawa. The Obuchi Scholarship celebrates its 10th anniversary in the year of 2010 so that we are now planning to have a commemorative symposium together with the Okinawa prefectural government. We are also planning to invite the EWC chancellor, the USA ambassador to Japan and a representative of the Japanese Government to this symposium.

4. Joining a symposium on the Successful Study Results by Obuchi Fellows

The Japan International Foundation hosted a symposium on the successful study results by Obuchi fellows on November 20, 2009. Many EWC alumni attended the symposium and listened to the fellows. The fellows presented their beautiful study results and emphasized the necessity of keeping the scholarship system and studying at the EWC in order to enrich Okinawans’ academism and professionalism. They also insisted that such experiences really help Okinawa develop human resources.

5. Planning to publish a collection of essays written by Okinawans’ EWC alumni

We plan to publish a collection of essays in order to let others know what wonderful experiences the alumni had under the EWC programs in Hawaii. This is another commemorative work on the EWC/EWCA 50th anniversary.

6. Holding an annual general meeting

The Okinawa Chapter regularly holds an annual general meeting, which gives an opportunity to its members to keep a good relationship with each other. In the meeting in 2009, we discussed the topics of the budgets for the 08 and 09 fiscal years, some projects, scholarship fundraising and a commemorative event on the Obuchi Scholarship 10th anniversary. There were also reports of how to join the EWC/EWCA 50th anniversary and Bali International Conference.

7. Others

We have had EWC alumni from outside of Okinawa and enjoyed sharing a few moments over Okinawan healthy dishes and Awamori.

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