The Programme | The NIA | Sakura FM |
Like many foreign residents of Nishinomiya, I am a member in the Nishinomiya International Association. The NIA was established in 1992 to stimulate the internationalization of Nishinomiya. Today, it is a thriving volunteer organisation that provides language training, information services, administrative help, translations, and legal aid to the city's foreign residents. The NIA also supports initiatives in the city to help raise awareness of foreigners, and provides foreign language training to Nishinomiya's citizens.
I am involved in the NIA as a student of Japanese, but also as a volunteer. Most of my activities are both minor and invisible, but I also take part in the monthly radio programmes that are broadcast in Chinese, Portugese and English by the NIA in collaboration with Sakura FM. Since 2010, I have also co-presented the English language radio programme, together with the incomparable Veronica Kojima. Our programme covers topics ranging from the legal minimum wage to traditional holidays.
I am very proud to have been asked to make this contribution, and I believe the multi-lingual radio service is of great value to the immigrant communities in the city. I am considerably less proud, indeed rather ashamed, at how clumsy and unprofessional I sound on air. Making radio is not easy! But for the sake of full disclosure, our programmes can be heard here.