September 21,2022
On September 21, Governor Carlos Padilla of Nueva Vizcaya Province, Luzon Island, Philippines, presented OISCA with a certificate of appreciation for its longstanding environmental conservation activities and agricultural teaching. OISCA has been involved in teaching agriculture to youth at universities in the province since 1977, and also contributed to the food production increase project of the Philippine government at that time. Moreover, OISCA has conducted a reforestation project in Kirang, Aritao, which has resulted in the planting of over 600 hectares of trees with local residents and volunteers from Japan.
The mountains in the area, which had been suffering from water shortage during the dry season, have regained their water retaining functions through reforestation, enabling the production of rice three times a year. Today, OISCA is continuing to carry out its greening activities while managing the planted site.
Meanwhile, a memorandum of agreement was signed on October 28 between OISCA International and State University of Abra (formerly Abra State Institute of Sciences and Technology) in the Province of Abra for the training of Japanese language instructors. This is a re-signing of the MOA exchanged in 2019, which reaffirms and re-starts the content of the plan after the University was forced to suspend its classes due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the name change of the University following its promotion. The memorandum includes, among other priority items, that OISCA Kansai Training Center will conduct a training program aimed at improving the teaching skills of Japanese language instructors in order to establish Japanese language department on campus. Furthermore, it was also discussed that technical intern trainees dispatched from the region through OISCA would be selected from trainees who are graduates of the university. By dispatching trainees proficient in Japanese, it is hoped that they will deepen their understanding of technical instruction at the training sites and acquire skills at a higher level.
