Nagasaki International Family Trees & Education
Organizers
Co-Representative
Rie Ogata
She is from Nagasaki and after graduating from high school, she moved to UK and spent over 13 years in London.
She worked for various theatre and music productions as a technician and promoter, and earned an MA in Ethnomusicology at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Her experience of living/ studying and raising a child overseas encouraged her to establish NIFTe so that she can share and ulterise her experience. Her passion is exploring alternative music and browsing recipe books to get an inspiration. She is a mother of a 7 year old boy who inherited love of food from his mum.
Co-Representative
Ikumi Fritz
When she was a junior high school student, she met a family who came from from abroad and first encountered experience with non-Japanese people. She had traveling by herself in the world dozens countries from 18 years old, she was attracted to the environment issue, traditional foods and cultures. She has kindergarten teacher, nursery teacher, and care worker qualifications. After graduated from junior college, she lived to the Australia, and after came back to Japan, she had working in a nursing home for the elderly. After married and had birth experience, she was curious of the body and mind of a women, and established ikumi-birthdoula to support Japanese mothers and non-Japanese mothers children. Living in Nagasaki.
Micheal Pillay
Micheal Pillay is from South Africa and is currently a student at Nagasaki University. He is pursuing his doctorate in infectious diseases. He is hoping to contribute to helping build a better communication platform between Nagasaki and international residents and aid international students who have to face the unique challenges of adapting to a city where English is not the medium of communication.
Robinson Fritz
Robinson Fritz is originally from the UK and has lived more than fifteen years in Japan. He has several years of teaching Japanese students from elementary to the university level. He currently works at a local university in Nagasaki and his academic interests include intercultural education, intercultural communication, English as foreign language and learner psychology.
Ryo Nakamura
Ryo Nakamura is from Sasebo, Nagasaki and he studies Economics at Nagasaki University. When he was 19 years old, he was very influenced by TEDx and decided to learn English in order to do a study abroad. Throughout a bunch of opportunities which were like the interaction with exchange students or English café, he has been fascinated by a cross-cultural communication.
Currently, he studies how to encourage Japanese people to jump into cross-cultural environments.