Greetings

Let's make new activities move forward and forward!

　The Inzai City International Friendship Association (IIFA) was established on April 1, 2001 with the aim of contributing to the promotion of internationalization in Inzai City through citizen-led activities. Since then, with the support of Inzai City and other related parties, we have carried out various activities with the aim of making Inzai a multicultural city where Japanese and foreign residents understand and respect each other's culture and where it is easy for foreign residents to live in reality.

　In the 23 years since its establishment, many people from various countries and regions have moved into Inzai City, and as of February 2024, the number of people registered as foreign citizens has exceeded 3,100 people from 68 countries and regions. Under these circumstances of rapid increase in the number of foreign-born citizens, we want to be more sensitive than ever to the needs of these people and start a new phase of activities to meet their expectations, which we have already started to implement.

　One of these activities is the ‘expansion and strengthening of the Japanese language support system for children with foreign roots’. The year before last, we set up a project team, Kids IIFA, and as a first attempt, we organized a Japanese language study group twice a month on Saturdays and twice a month on Sundays from May last year, as well as a summer holiday study class. We will further enhance both programs, and at the same time, we will continue to support parents in learning Japanese, while listening to the opinions of schools and others.

　Today, the world is facing various challenges. It is precisely at times like these that we believe the exchanges we aim for between different cultures are important.

　However, we are still small in number of people and power. We would be more than happy if we could get as many citizens as possible to join us in order to take our new international exchange activities forward. We sincerely look forward to your participation.

Shoji Bando,

Chairperson