※KAPLANと国際人道支援組織JPFは、連携プロジェクトとして日本の情報発信力UP！「国際人道支援における英語力強化プロジェクト」 を行っております。


ずいぶん涼しく、過ごしやすくなりましたね。
お久しぶりです。JPFの板倉です。9か月ぶりに、カプランに復帰しました！



今、隔週土曜日の「石渡誠スペシャル」に参加しています。 素敵な方たちと出会え、やる気のあるみなさんと一緒に学べるのがとても新鮮で気持ちが良いですね。 最初は、仕事帰りにと木曜日の受講としましたが、次の木曜日までに宿題が終わらなかったので土曜日に参加したところ、ユニークなメンバーに出会えました。 スピーチの発表では、お掃除コンサルタントの話、いなくなっちゃった猫（チビ）の話、、、私はどれも聞き入ってしまい、土曜日クラスに行くことに決めました。 このブログを書いてしまったら、さっそくスピーチの準備をします。



さて、最近の私の仕事を少し紹介しましょう。（スーダンプログラム担当です。） スーダンでは、今年の4月には二十数年ぶりに総選挙が実施され、来年の1月には、南部の分離独立を決定する住民投票が開催されます。

JPFでは、難民として避難していたスーダン人が、故郷へ帰還できるよう基盤を整えるための支援を実施してきました。主な支援内容は、帰還先の地域への水の確保と衛生教育ですが、生計手段の確保や保健施設の整備も緊急の課題として取り組んでいます。 プログラム担当の私は、10月と12月にモニタリング評価調査団の派遣に向け、専門家の選定やその打ち合わせ、ロジの調整や各NGOの担当者と調査内容の確認を行っています。

この調査に力を注ぐのも、実施プログラムの達成度を公正に評価し、来年度の支援ニーズの確認、次年度の支援方針を策定するための欠かせない調査だからです。また、JPFのスーダンの1プログラムだけで、今年は総額十億円の拠出を決定しており、これらの活動を支えてくれている社会に対して説明する責任があるからです。



ちょっとここで、スーダンに関わる心温まる、ある話をご報告したいと思います。 紛争後の支援は、民間からのご支援が自然災害時に比べて極端に少ない現状があります。なので、このスーダンプログラムに対して一般からのご寄付をウェブ等で募っておりませんでした。

私が6月にスーダン出張から戻ってきたくらいだと思いますが、経理担当から「スーダン事業へ、十万円の振り込みがありましたよ！」と振り込みカードのコピーを私に持ってきてくれました。そこには、青森の高校(青森県立野辺地高等学校3年4組)の依頼先が書いてあり、「スーダンの人々への支援に役立てて下さい」とメッセージが添えてありました。高校3年生の１クラスで、１０万円の大金をどのようにあつめ、この支援先をどのように決めてくれたのか。経理担当者と話していると、このクラスの皆さんからは一昨年のミャンマー・サイクロン、昨年のジンバブエのコレラと2年も続けて同額のご寄付を下さっているとのことでした。

自分たちで、出来ることを考え、社会の問題について、取り組んでいる姿に頭が下がる思いでした。また、スーダンの人々や難しい境遇に置かれた人々に対して共感し、心を寄せてくれる応援団がいることにとっても嬉しくなりました。 次回スーダンに行くときは、政府関係者、現地の生徒や教育関係者に対して日本の高校生によるご寄付とその気持ちを、'ちゃんと'伝えたいと思いました。



しばらくは、隔週でBEYOND THE BORDERのブログを更新したいと思いますので、引き続きどうぞよろしくお願いいたします。

▼▽▼▼【受講生】板倉さんのバックナンバー━━━━━━━━
・【植えられた場所で咲く】2009.11.02 (Mon)

The other day, a Japanese friend of mine asked me if there was any Japanese food that I couldn't stand. As usual, I answered that I dislike natto (fermented soy beans) and umeboshi (pickled plum). I also told him that I used to hate toufu (bean curd) but got used to it over the years.


Japanese people often ask me this question and they seem surprised that there are only two dishes I dislike. I am more surprised with myself, however. This is because when I was a child I never ate anything healthy. Growing up in England in the 1970s and 1980s meant that we didn't have so many international dishes (well certainly not in my house) so I lived off English food and I refused to eat any vegetable except potatoes until I was age 14!


Let me show you a typical daily diet for Anthony Gardner age 10.


1. Coco Pops for breakfast (I think you have these in Japan but call it something else. It's a chocolate cereal that, as the advert used to say, "is so chocolatey, it even turns the milk brown."

2. Crisps for a mid-morning snack. Americans call crisps potato chips. I used to eat these a lot. My favourite was prawn cocktail or smoky bacon flavour!

3. School Lunch in my primary school was shockingly bad. We only had one choice served by a huge dinner lady with hairy arms (maybe). My memory is of colourless, tasteless slop. We wept as we ate it and I would throw it on the floor so that my plate looked finished and I could go out to play.

4. Biscuits. Americans call them cookies. I was hungry after school because I had thrown my lunch on the school dining-room floor, therefore I always nagged my Mum for something to eat when I got home. She just told me to eat a chocolate biscuit. I would sit in front of the TV and eat many biscuits until I was full.

5. Dinner.Because I had eaten so much about two hours before, I never had an appetite for dinner. My Mum would be angry because I couldn't finish what was on my plate (which was usually potato and meat of some kind). I refused to eat vegetables and my Mum never forced them on me. I think she didn't worry so much about my health and I wasn't fat at all. I always had room in my stomach for dessert though!


As you can see, I had a steady diet of dangerous food. However, I never ate fast food from shops and I got exercise every day so I think I wasn't as bad as some of the kids today.

Anyway, tell me what you think about the Anthony Gardner diet regime!

▼▽▼▼【講師】Anthony先生のバックナンバー━━━━━━━━
・【New Class Quandary】2010.08.27 (Fri)

Even though I am an English teacher who loves books, I have to admit that I don't always get around to reading as much as I should...or even as much as I want to. (As I've mentioned to some of you, I love buying books even though I rarely finish reading them.) It seems a little strange for me to say this, but perhaps that's one of the reasons why I love my "English Literacy" class.

On Monday evenings and Wednesday afternoons, my students and I meet together and we get to spend a lot of time discussing, analyzing and interpreting some really interesting texts. I love finding ways that writers' lives have blended into the words that they put on the page. I love the fact that we can learn about our own culture and even find new ways to compare it to other cultures by looking at literature. I love how I always see something that I never noticed before when I talk about what I've read with other people. And most of all, I love how everyone sees things differently, even if we are all talking about the same story. Sometimes I think that I'm learning right along with the students in my class.

But I guess that's how a lot of things go in life, right? Most things are better when we can share them with other people. Even work! Last week I went to help an acquaintance with a big project he had in progress. He usually has to do everything on his own, so this time was quite different for him. There was certainly nothing interesting, exciting or special about the job that we were doing, but what I realized as I was leaving was how quickly time had seemed to pass as we worked, how much I had enjoyed getting to know my new friend as we chatted while we worked, how the task itself became more valuable than just the finished product or the output of our labor.

I hope that students in my classes are able to feel this way when they study English. One of the reasons that I love teaching classes with many students is because it energizes me to see so many people together. I have some Japanese roommates who often study for hours at night alone in their rooms; they look drained at the end of the evening, and that makes me feel sad. I definitely don't want learning English to feel like "work" for you!

Maybe the most important lesson I have learned from this is that when I only concentrate on the "work" to be done, it can become easy to feel overwhelmed or even to dread what needs to be done. Sometimes we can lose enthusiasm for something altogether. But even the most boring tasks can be made into something more worthwhile if we focus on the joys of interacting with others, if we really appreciate what other people can contribute, if we never lose sight of any new skills or knowledge to be gained from our work. I believe that then, not only do we become better workers, but we also feel better about our work in the process. Happy studying!

(P.S. Just a quick reminder that I'll be on vacation from Kaplan between September 20th and September 28th. Be extra nice to my substitute teachers!  I'll miss everyone while I'm away, but I look forward to sharing with you about my holiday after I return. See you!)

▼▽▼▼【講師】Melanie先生のバックナンバー━━━━━━━━

・【Being Comfortable is Less Important than You'd Think】2010.07.23 (Fri)

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今日はNewsweek List更新のお知らせです。

ワークショップクラス【Newsweek Lecture/Discussion】で学ぶトピックスは下記の通りです。

 I suppose every blog entry should have a purpose. To teach something new, for example. This puts me in the precarious position of having to know something that I think other people may also want to know. The thing is, I don't really know anything. Maybe this is part of my 'motto' or something.

I find that the older I get, the less I really know about myself. I don't want to take anything for granted. And I wonder, how much of my identity is predetermined? Let's talk about Michael Jackson for a moment. He was born into a family of singing sensations. I doubt he had any memory of not being famous. People were always watching him. I'm sure this had a profound effect on his concept of self. No doubt he was quite self-conscious (who wouldn't be with millions of people following their every move?)

I'm not suggesting that everyone would make the same choices in his position. But thinking in this regard, our parents' financial situation, our home country, our appearance and our education go a long way in determining how we will act and react in our lives. More and more, I feel that these are only superficial aspects of our identity, of who we are.

Education, for example, is partly our choice. I chose my university because it was the best, and I could get in. But isn't that such the obvious choice. If you were in my position, you would have done the same. And if you had my set of strengths and weaknesses, you would have ended up in the same major. So how much does my education really say about who I am on a deeper level? I don't think it says much.

I think our true identity can be seen when we do very subtle things, like draw pictures, play music, help people we don't know, and sometimes, maybe, when we write blogs. Doing such things help divorce us just a little from our less choice-based conditions like education or appearance. A loss of face and identity to give us an opportunity to find it again. Without knowing the painter, or the musician, you can focus on their works and see a little more beyond the superficial.

▼▽▼▼【講師】Sandy先生のバックナンバー━━━━━━━━
・【The Fifth Season】2010.06.02 (Wed)