SENDAI – The charity Ashinaga, which provides financial support to school-age children who have lost parents to disasters, illness or suicide, will start a program in August to help such orphans study English abroad.
The foundation said Saturday it will send about 100 children overseas for about 10 days during their summer vacations to learn practical English.
Fifth-graders through junior high school students up to age 15 can apply for the program, whose costs will be shouldered by Ashinaga.
Prior to the program’s launch, 11 children from Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures who lost parents in the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami visited the Philippines with the help of Ashinaga from March 24 to April 2 to study English.
One of them, Yu Nitta, 14, from the coastal town of Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, said he had fun in the Philippines and now is eager to study English even more.
