JETAA USA’s very own Steven Horowitz of JETwit was interviewed by American View about ways in which JET alums and JETs helped support Japan in the recovery efforts following March 11, 2011. American View is a quarterly newsletter published by the US Embassy in Tokyo. It is published in both English and Japanese and focuses US-Japan relations and people to people interactions. We are so grateful to have the opportunity to showcase our efforts and to be recognized in this arena. A big thanks to Steven Horowitz for taking the time to represent us so well!
- To read the full article in English, click HERE.
- To view the online version of American View in Japanese, click HERE.
- To download American View in Japanese (pdf), click HERE.
Steven Horowitz, JET alumnus and creator of JETwit
American View: How many Americans are currently participating in the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) program? How many American alumni are there?
Steven Horowitz: Based on the JET Programme website, there were 4,330 JETs in total as of July 2011, 2322 of whom were Americans. Over 55,000 people from 50 different countries have participated in the JET Programme since its inception.
American View: What is your role in JET activities to assist with Japan’s recovery following the March 11 disaster?
Steven Horowitz: As the publisher of the JETwit.com site, which is the official unofficial online resource for the JET alumni community, I found myself playing an information gathering and sharing role. JETwit is the main information source for the JET alumni community in the U.S. and internationally. So I started obsessively gathering information from different news sources, following and posting on Facebook groups, and tracking down other sources and trying to piece information together in a way that would be helpful to JET alumni and relatives of JETs in the U.S. and elsewhere.
I then gradually shifted my role to using JETwit and my network to help to share information and connect people with regard to fundraising and activating the JET alumni community as well as letting people know the wonderful and varied ways in which individual JETs and JET alumni as well as JET Alumni Association chapters have been supporting recovery efforts since 3/11. (to continue reading, click HERE)
