Money was not Fareeha Ibrahim's reason for joining the JET program. In fact, as a senior policy adviser in Australia's Environment Department, her annual income was significantly more than the 3.6 million yen she gets as a JET.
"I had reached a point in my career where I wanted to do some hands-on work," says Ibrahim. "The JET program was not only an opportunity to work directly with people in a hands-on capacity, but a chance to live, work and learn in another country."
At the Environment Department, Ibrahim's responsibilities included advising top government officials on world heritage sites, climate change (greenhouse gas emissions), tropical forests and other international conservation issues. She was in the Australian delegation at the United Nations' Climate Change Convention negotiations in Geneva and was an Australian government representative at the climate change meeting of the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.