Program promotes understanding

Elsewhere on this page, a letter to the editor is published from a young woman from Japan who is concluding a visit which allowed her to spend the 2008-2009 academic year at Anna-Jonesboro Community High School.

The visit was arranged through the 4-H Japanese Exchange program. The goal of the program is to enhance inernational, cross-cultural understanding between the cultures of Japan and the United States.

The program, which is coordinated locally by Anna residents Norman and Barbara Bauer, also is designed to provide an avenue for families and young people to improve their communication skills, while increasing their international awareness and understanding.

Through the exchange program, young people from Japan are placed in an American family with a host brother or sister.

Based on the sentiments shared in the letter to the editor, it would appear that the program achieved its goal.

Natsuki Amari writes that she experienced a wonderful year while learning firsthand about Anna, Union County, Southern Illinois and the United States.

Bruce, Jill and Elizabeth Bell of Union County hosted Natsuki during her stay in Southern Illinois. The exchange program cemented a friendship which began four years ago, when Natsuki paid an initial visit to our area.

“This has been the best year of my entire life,” Natsuki told her American “dad.” The feelings were mutual. “She is my daughter,” Bruce told us.

Such feelings reflect the goals of the program. In this day and time, and in an ever-shrinking world, any opportunity to promote to international understanding is significant, and worthy of mention.

Perhaps if more of us could be part of such a program, then the world just might be a better, and safer, place to live.