Japanese Student Association would like to invite members of the campus community to the Japanese Quake/Tsunami Relief Charity Concert at 6 p.m. Monday, April 25, at the Arkansas Union Connection Lounge.

Several performers will gather for one night to support for the people who were affected by the earthquake and tsunami which happened on March 11. Vietnamese Student Association and Chinese Students & Scholars Association will join Japanese Student Association to support as well. Tatsuya Fukushima, associate professor of Japanese and linguistics at the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, will perform his guitar with JSA members.

The situation in the Tohoku area is still severe. The news on TV or the Internet is heartbreaking.

The Japanese Red Cross reported on April 13 that “at the one month mark, the number of confirmed dead was  13,127 and missing/unaccounted for totaled 14,348, with 4,793 people being treated for injuries. Within the three worst affected prefectures (Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima), 127,817 persons remained in evacuation centers, still displaced by the disaster. Although the focus during the first month has been on emergency health care and emergency relief distributions, in the coming weeks, the Japanese Red Cross Society (JRCS) will continue to place greater emphasis on early recovery and restoration of social welfare services.”

Hirona Sato, a student from Iwate Prefecture in Japan and a member of Soran Bushi Dance Team, expressed her appreciation to the campus community. “Thank you very much for your support that we’ve been receiving since the earthquake happened. All the Japanese students, including myself, are very thankful for our kind friends who care about us and our country. I’m so proud of being a member of such a great team. We will continue to share our culture with the community.”

These series of tragedies – the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power plant incident – that happened in Japan reminded of all of us there should be ways to wisely live in this modern society while respecting the Mother Nature. Also, it has given people lessons how important it is to unite together to show solidarity and help each other in this kind of circumstances.

Japanese students on campus hope to have community members at their charity event to share Japanese culture and show the power of diversity.

Your generous donation will be sent to the Red Cross to support emergency relief and recovery efforts to help those people affected by the earthquake and Tsunami in Japan.

This event is sponsored by Japanese Language Program at University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

If you have any questions, please contact Dr. Fukushima at tatsuya@uark.edu or the JSA’s president, Aki Nagano, at japanese@uark.edu.