Official program starts today!

The official program starts today. Morning had the program briefing where we meet all the persons who is involved with this 7 weeks course.

The orientation is simple. We all introduce ourselves and Mr Asahi (who lost his voice so he mostly write the words down on the whiteboard and Keiko has to "voice" out for him) explained about the program. For the next 3 weeks we will have lectures, visitation, learning skills like facilitating, business management & organization. 1 week we will visit the Fukushima Prefecture. of course we have to submit some reports, job report which most of us prepare oledi before coming over, a Project Plan and a Progress Report (to submit 6 months after going back to our home country)



Amazing... so many people arranging for this course for only 5 of us. The back row, L-R: Keiko, Mr Akira Terashima, Mr Masaya Asahi, Mr Yoshmichi Ogawa, Okuhira-san, Sadaie-san &
Kitagawa-san. ermmmm If I have to write their position and from where it will take up an entire blog so later...if got time Front row: Zhou, Nerand, me, Indra & Kiran
Later on the way to the Ministry of Health, Labour & Welfare, we stop by to take photos of the Japanese parliment or what they call there "Diet". Amazing when the Americans bomb Tokyo during the WW2 almost everything was flatten and this building was left intact. Very nice Aztec architecture.

View from the 17th floor of the Ministry of Health, Labour & Welfare.

Mr Takao Chinone who works for the welfare department. He gave us the lecture on the Welfare Services for the Persons with Disabilities in Japan. Here the term they use is different from us. They use Intellectual Disabilities and we use Learning Disabilities. There's 3 categories in Japan,

1. Physical Disabilities which includes the visual & hearing impairment
2. Mental Disabilities, schizophrenia and other mental illness
3. Intellectual Disabilities

PWDs who are 18 years & above needs to apply for a cetificate (like our welfare card) in order to get the benefits from the government. 18 and below doesn't need as they are cover under the children welfare law. Those who are severe to moderate disabilities will get a pension from the government about 990,100yen a year.... sounds like a lot...even more then what I get in my 1 year salary but not enough if you are living in Japan. That's y they need to work and the gov is trying to create more employment for them. There's so many things to read on their welfare law....even Mr Takao couldn't finish the lecture in under 2 hours!
Came back about 5:30pm...check my mails and then went for my first Japanese lessons class, free at TIC. Classes is on from Mon-Wed, 6:30pm-8pm for the next 3 weeks. There were 7 of us in the class, me, Nerand, 1 from China, 1 from Sierre Leone, 1 from Jamaica and 2 from Indonesia. Basically we just make fun of each other's pronunciations! It was funny & hilarious! The teacher is damn funny. I took japanese lessons before more then 10 years ago and forgot most of it but the teacher knows that I learnt before becoz straight away I greeted her with "konbanwa" and pronounce it correctly! phew! She taught us the standard greetings and how to introduce ourselves:
Hajimemashite (How do you do?)
Moh Foong desu (My name is Moh Foong)
Malaysia no Kuala Lumpur kara kimashita ( I am from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
shigoto wa komuin desu (I work as a social worker)
Dozo yoroshiku (Nice to meet you)

Have to memorize it for tomorrow's lessons!