Planned elementary school hopes to focus on English

Priscila Miranda Akahori
July 21, 2003

Dear Everyone,

The Philippines has an existing Unification Theological Seminary - UTS Philippines with international students mostly from Asia. Also running registered kindergarten existing under Philippine laws. It was started 4 years ago. Its first 32 students are blessed children of Philippine couples, international couples and foreign missionaries who are attending the regular Sunday school in Philippine Church Headquarters. Since there area lot of church members who are professional teachers and school administrators, it was not really very difficult to start. We made use of the existing resources both material and manpower, then from children's tuition fee and fundraising activities through out the year , the school was able to exist without asking financial support from the church.

Last year there were about a hundred students and this year they accepted children of non members and added first to third grade classes as well. The school is definitely growing so they are planning to add 4th to 6th grade classes by next year. There is a building construction on going now for the school's expansion project. Non member parents really appreciate the school because the school has children of different nationalities , thus the chance to learn another language and culture.

The school curriculum includes Divine Principle and Foreign Languages like Korean and Japanese besides from the basic subjects like Math , Science and English etc. The medium of instruction is in English. Also the(non member parents)can see that moral values and character are very much emphasized in the school. Plus the nice teachers and administrators around. Some non member parents are being witnessed to and now already joining some church related activities. Now there are a lot of Filipina church members who are married to Japanese, American and Korean with children are coming back to the Philippines to put their children in that school (the school has a dormitory) while they go back to their hometown and do tribal messiahship. All this things happen in 4 years time. I think parent's determination and members cooperation are important factors if we are to build a similar school in Japan.

I know it will not be as easy as we did in Philippines since we are foreigners and the rules maybe different. But having a Japanese spouses who can help us understand the rules would be a great help. In our case husband and wife cooperation is also important. It will take time but at least we are starting something isn't ?

I think its a good idea to offer what we can or what we have for a start. I am a professional teacher having taught for five years in Philippine elementary school and for 5 years in Japan (English) kindergarten. I think I can help both in the field of teaching and in curriculum planning as I have experience in doing this. I hope we can accumulate more ideas through this mailing list. Thanks for reading.

Priscila Miranda Akahori
Secretary
Filipino Japanese Blessed Family Association