Haddonfield's Japan Student Exchange Launched Again

The devastating tsunami and earthquake in Japan in March launched reverberations that are still being felt in Haddonfield.

A student exchange program between the Japanese city of Kasukabe and Haddonfield was interrupted after the tragic event that killed as many as 21,000 people and left entire cities abandoned after a radiation leak from a damaged nuclear power plant.

Kasukabe, a suburb of Tokyo, is several hundred miles from the epicenter of damage in Fukushima, but a planned trip last summer was postponed after the disaster. Closer to home, internal problems with the borough Japan Exchange program also contributed to the cancelation.

Exchange founder Bill Brown, a retiree and longtime borough resident, had stepped away from the daily responsibility for the program. Brown has now returned to lead the program, and is eyeing a trip next summer for a few dozen borough high school students.

A mid-January deadline is looming to confirm all participants, Brown said. He knows time is tight, but insists the benefits far outweigh the challenges to getting the program back on track.

"This program is an important opportunity for our students to explore another country and culture that is much different than ours, but in ways similar," Brown said. "Unlike some other international programs that are arranged by travel companies and are nothing more than glorified sightseeing tours, the HJE program provides two weeks of home stays with Japanese families, where you are a member of the family for two weeks, you will live the culture.

"The students return with a broader sense of the world and find out how the U.S. is viewed by others; when we host we share the American culture with our Japanese guests."

l Principal Mike Wilson agrees.

"It provides student with a chance to see the world for the small place it is," Wilson said. "It also brings young people together here who may not normally interact with each other. Bill puts a lot of heart and soul into it."

For more information, please contact Bill Brown at: 856-429-4368 or  
billbrown08033@aol.com