The CEPEX Hokkaido Branch includes a volunteer team of Nitobe College Students at Hokkaido University. Pictured below is CEPEX Hokkaido Representative Ms. Yukari Kasahara, with Ms. Taki Shimada, Ms. Yuuha Okubo and Taiga Takahashi.

The CEPEX Hokkaido branch is actively engaged in regional promotion and internationalization issues through creating policy proposals of “Hokkaido Model”, which seeks to utilize JET Program participants. Did you know that Hokkaido has the second largest population of JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching) Program participants after Tokyo? In 2017-2018 there were 263 JET Program participants in Hokkaido, compared to 391 participants based in Tokyo.

Participants in the JET Program come from 44 countries, although the majority are from the U.S., UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa and Ireland. JET participants have little control over their placement in Japan and often face a variety of challenges, such as loneliness in isolate regions, issues navigating everyday life in Japan, cross-cultural misunderstandings and questions about the future. CEPEX Hokkaido wants to not only directly support ALTs, but also explore mutual theme which would enable ALTs to work with students in the classes.

Last year the Hokkaido team proposed “Plan for Interactive Community House with ALT ” (see here). This year, they are working on new efforts to actively collaborate with local communities and students with the theme of “Planning for Regional Development with JET Program Participants” which also takes into consideration how to deal with natural disasters such as earthquakes.