Photo: Giff Johnson.
GIFF JOIHNSON
Two new Japan International Cooperation Agency volunteers who arrived earlier this month in Majuro bring to 17 the total number of Japanese volunteers working on Majuro and Ebeye.
Sachiko Kutsuma, a Japanese language teacher, and Yasuhiro Fukuda, a food processing and manufacturing specialist, are mid-way through their orientation program before heading to their respective work locations.
Kutsuma will be teaching Japanese language to Majuro Cooperative School middle school and high school students. She arrives with 17 years of experience teaching non-Japanese to speak her language. She taught Japanese language in Singapore for a couple of years and for the past 15 years has been teaching at a Japanese language school for foreign students in Tokyo.
She said her interest in working with JICA was motivated in part by Japan’s historical ties to the Pacific Islands, although she admits she didn’t know much about the Marshall Islands when she first considered the assignment some months ago.
She pointed to the lasting relationship between Japanese and Marshallese and noted that even today, over 80 years since Japan administered the Marshall Islands, Japanese language is still in use in various ways by Marshallese.
She said she’s looking forward to working with students at Coop School.
Meanwhile, Fukuda will soon be working at the Marshall Islands Marine Resources Authority’s Outer Islands Fish Market Center at Uliga Dock.
For the past eight years before heading to Majuro, he worked at a food manufacturing company in Japan that process agriculture, seafood and meat products. One of his jobs was “creating new healthy dishes” with food the company processed in order to make them more popular among their customers.
Once he starts working at MIMRA’s fish market, Fukuda said he would know more about what areas of marine products handling and processing the Coastal Fisheries Division wants him engaged in. But he did note one of the products that he helped develop while in Japan was an “octopus dumpling” that he said became “very popular” in Osaka.
“Since I was 52, I had a dream to contribute (my skills) to local people,” he said of signing up with JICA. “Now I’m 61 and my dream has come true.”
Prior to the arrival of the two new Japan International Cooperation Agency volunteers, there were 15 volunteers in RMI — 11 in Majuro, four in Ebeye.
With the arrival of Sachiko Kutsuma and Yasuhiro Fukuda, the number of JICA volunteers is now 17 — 13 in Majuro, four in Ebeye.
Prior to Covid, JICA had nearly double this number working in RMI, primarily in hospitals at Ebeye and Majuro, and in public elementary, middle and high schools.
Since 2023, JICA has been rebuilding the volunteer force in RMI based on requests from government ministries and agencies and local schools.