Building community one JET at a time.

My Invincible Compass (2021) is a 5-year documentary following the journeys of Tomoya and other abused, abandoned and neglected children living in institutional care around Japan. Movie made by Matt Miller (Gunma, 2006-2009). Link to video

JET Streams in the JET Programme newsletter featuring articles by JET alumni. Read it here!

This issue features articles by:

• Roseanna Finkle-Vern, Aichi Prefecture CIR, 2014-2017
• Divya Jha, Kitakyushu ALT, 2007-2008
• Jennifer Sherman, Mie Prefecture ALT, 2012-2016
• Shuying Yao, Sapporo ALT, 2010-2012
• Steven Munatones, Shiga Prefecture ALT, 1988-1990
• Lindsey Bridges, Tochigi Prefecture ALT, 1997-1999

Forbes featured an article on the women-owned business, Kokoro Care Packages, which includes handcrafted Japanese snacks, recipes and ingredients from Kyoto and Kyushu all delivered right to your front door. JET Alumna Lillian Rowlatt (2002-2005) runs the U.S. operations. Read the article.

James McKnight speaks with Leighton Ginn of Ginn and Topics about his new book during this video.

• ALT Insider features Daniel Stone (Saitama, 2004-2007) and how he turned his career with JET into his own teaching company in America, in a niche he was very comfortable with, Japanese people wanting to learn English! Listen here.
• Life After JET podcast features Michael Coleman and Alex Varney.
  • Michael talks about his voice acting career, including for something called Road Puncher? Lane Brawler? Oh wait – Street Fighter! Yea, that’s the one. Never heard of it. Hope it’ll take off some day. 😉 We talk about conventions, creative projects and more. If you’ve played a computer game, you’ve probably heard his voice behind a character. Listen here.
  • Alex gives a 101 into the marketing, communications, and PR industry, discusses whether PR has bad PR, and they we discuss that most precious of “industries,” the social media influencer.
    Listen here.
• Season by Season: An Audio Odyssey Through Nature is a podcast with Alexis and Kit, lifelong friends who now live on opposite coasts. They explore poetry, music, and sound on a journey through the rhythm of nature expressed by the seasons. Alexis (Shimane, 2009-2011) is a JET alumna and many of the contributors to the poetry readings in the podcast are JETs. More information and listen here.

The new book Inaka: Portrait of Rural Japan is a collection of short stories featuring contributions from three JET alumni: Austin Gilkeson (Nagasaki, 2004-2006), Sam Baldwin from the UK, and Sarah Coomber (Yamaguchi, 19994-1996). Inaka: Portraits of Life in Rural Japan is an affectionate but unsentimental taste of authentic rural living: inconvenient superstitions, the tough realities of training to be a Buddhist monk, the mystery of an abandoned shrine, an ancient pilgrimage given new life, fishermen’s tales, cycling adventures, examples of rural revitalization in tea farm tourism and the indigo dyeing industry, hypothermia-inducing housing, and friendly neighbors sharing old customs and local histories. More information here.