Helping out

There's an excellent post over at Tofugu today about how you can help Japan and the disaster victims. In addition to providing some useful links, Koichi is running a promotion for his online Japanese language learning system, TextFugu. He's donating 110% of all proceeds to disaster relief in Japan. That was enough for me to buy a lifetime membership for my sister, who has wanted to learn Japanese for some time now. If you want to donate to the relief effort anyway, why not consider gifting TextFugu to a friend who is studying or wants to learn Japanese? Birds, meet stone.

There are a number of efforts going on to help right now. As many Japanese are rightfully proud of how well Japan is handling this catastrophe, I'm also proud of how quick and eager both the U.S. and foreigners of all stripes in Japan have been to give whatever aid they can. There are a number of efforts underway to provide money, supplies, housing, and moral support to the victims in Japan. I'll be posting some resources at JADJ's Facebook page, but here are some I've come across:

(Some of these are mentioned in the above Tofugu post)

- There is a campaign starting up by Jason Kelly called Socks For Japan, which aims to send unused socks to those people who need them most right now.

- Second Harvest Japan is currently accepting food and other supplies as donations to the disaster victims.

- Hope Letters is a letter-writing campaign that began on March 11th, to send letter of support to victims. Morale can also be an important resource.

- CouchSurfing has set up a group for those willing to put up refugees.

- National AJET has set up a Facebook-coordinated effort called Man Up For Japan to donate to the relief effort. It's particularly targeted at asking JET members to donate a portion of their next paycheck, but everyone is welcome.

- Update: Rene from Shoujiki Shindoi is organizing Project Hitori Jyanai (You're Not Alone), another effort at boosting morale through positive messages and photos.

There are also a large number of organizations and charities accepting donations. You can donate through iTunes and Amazon.com, I've heard. If you have the will, there are many ways to help.

If you have any other websites or resources to contribute, please share them in the comments!


I think after today, unless there are any major developments, I'll try to get back to posting as normal.