CWAJ and so VVI was awarded the Helen Keller Sullivan Award
CWAJ was selected as a winner of Helen Keller Sullivan Award for VVI’s long time contribution to the visually impaired society. Please read the complete press release on the website. We will also send more detailed information about the event itself, to our VVI web-list group.
Teaching English at JVDCB
Do you speak English? Then you can teach English! That is, you can help visually-impaired adults build up their English skills as they retrain for jobs at the Japan Vocational Development Center for the Blind and Low-Vision (JVDCB) in Yotsuya. For autumn, we have enough volunteer teachers, at the moment, but please contact Vicky or Kozue if you would like to observe a class. Classes are taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 13:00 to 14:30. Please consider joining our group. For information, contact Vicky Muehleisen at vicky@waseda.jp or Kozue Handa at khanda@nifty.com.
VVI’s 50th Anniversary in 2025 Concert
In 2025, CWAJ celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the Volunteers for Visually Impaired (VVI) Committee providing unique and meaningful programs in English for Japanese with a visual impairment. A wonderful concert was held on Thursday, November 6 at the Sumida Triphony Small Hall, near Kinshicho Station.
Rika Sugata, 2021 CWAJ Scholarship for the Visually Impaired (SVI) recipient, performed many pieces flawlessly on the piano, and Seina Kudo sang three songs, to the delight of the audience. Over 60 CWAJ members volunteered to make the event a success, and Her Royal Highness, Princess Akishino attended also, warmly welcoming the two performers to her waiting room after the concert to talk.
We congratulate Joanna Chinen (VVI’s 50 Anniversary Chair) and Shigeko Nagaoka (Cultural Programs Director) for their leadership and organizational skills in planning such a memorable occasion. In addition we couldn’t have done it without the assistance of the Cultural Programs Committee, the Concert Committee, and all of the many volunteers who supported the success of the concert. As the list of tasks multiplied, every time we had a meeting with the venue (bag checks to name a few), it’s amazing that everything went so smoothly. As people say, it takes a community to have a successful concert.
50th Anniversary Booklet
The 50th Anniversary Booklet Team worked very hard for almost two years, compiling and publishing the updated 50th Anniversary Bilingual Version of VVI’s history. Everyone who received a copy at the concert was full of praise for Eiko Furuta’s beautiful cover, stories from our invited contributors, the detailed activity list, and the complete list of SVI scholarship recipients. The committee did a superb job putting together such a detailed document and deserve our heartfelt congratulations. The members of the booklet committee were Masako Yanagita, Yoko Moskowitz, Fumiko Ishii, Sachiko Hamano, Mari Oka, Eri Nakase, Shigeko Nagaoka, Mayumi Ihara, and Amy Fujii.
At the moment, copies of the booklet will be available at the CWAJ Center and at the December General Meeting. Further distribution to overseas members and other interested parties will be discussed and planned in the future. Also the digital version has been uploaded to the VVI webpage, and a screen reader friendly version for our visually impaired readers will soon be uploaded.
