A 19th-century merry-go-round has been restored recently in the city of Orleans, 130 km south of Paris, thanks to the efforts of former JET Clarisse Carl. It is something her two children, ages 8 and 5, are proud of. But for Carl, an assistant to the president of Hitachi Europe, it is just one of her numerous accomplishments during the four years she's worked for this Japanese industrial giant.
At Hitachi, Europe's largest maker of high-end data-storage units, Carl's duties include planning work agendas and organizing business trips for company president Tadamitsu Kurokawa. She also produces an in-house company magazine, helps Japanese expatriate staff acclimatize to life in Orleans and organizes a teacher-exchange program funded by Hitachi -- called HISTEP -- between public school teachers from Japan and France. The program is intended to encourage teachers to share their traditional culture with elementary school, junior high school and high school students from their host country.
"The teacher-exchange program has aims similar to those of the JET program," explains Carl, "although the teachers stay for only 10 days."