Grace Oyekan, a Sugar Land resident, will be leaving for Toyko this month as a participant in the Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund (JFMF) Teacher Program.

Ms. Oyekan, a Special Education teacher at HISD Cunningham Elem. was selected from a national pool of over 1,700 applicants by a panel of educators to earn this honor. This program allows distinguished primary and secondary school educators in the U.S. to travel to Japan for three weeks in an effort to promote greater intercultural understanding between the two nations.

She will be among 160 educators visiting Japan. They will begin their visit in Tokyo with a practical orientation on Japanese life and culture and meetings with Japanese government officials and educators. They then will travel in groups of 16 to selected host cities where they will have direct contact with Japanese teachers and students during visits to primary and secondary schools as well as a teachers college. They will also visit cultural sites and local industries in addition to a brief homestay with a Japanese family.

The Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund, based in Tokyo, oversees all aspects of the Teacher Program. The program is sponsored by the Government of Japan and was launched in 1997 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the U.S. government Fulbright Program, which has enabled more than 6,000 Japanese citizens to study in the U.S. on Fulbright fellowships for graduate education and research.