Community Interpreting Research Seminar Students Create Pregnancy and Childbirth Guidebook for Foreigners Living in Fuchu City

February 1, 2023

On Friday, January 27, 2023, students of the Community Interpreting Research Seminar in the School of Language and Culture Studies held a debriefing session on the completion of the Pregnancy and Childbirth Guidebook for Foreigners that they compiled as part of their internship program. As in the previous year, this year’s debriefing session was held online through Zoom.

The Community Interpreting Research Seminar has been working with Fuchu City and the Fuchu International Exchange Salon to produce a series of Easy Living Guidebooks for Foreigners, covering such topics as disaster prevention, garbage disposal rules, attending a Japanese high school, public facilities, finding a place to live, and recommendations for walking spots.

This year, the seminar students compiled the Pregnancy and Childbirth Guidebook for Foreigners. The guidebook will be distributed in paper form throughout the city and will also be made available on the web.

On the day of the debriefing, a presentation on the guidebook’s contents and the process of its creation was followed by a question-and-answer session between the students and Fuchu International Salon volunteers. The Q&A session was a success, with valuable feedback from the volunteers and other students who participated. After the Q&A session, there was an opportunity to exchange opinions using breakout sessions, which led to lively discussions in each room.

Below are comments from students who participated in the debriefing session.

Ms. HARA Miyu (3rd year student, English, School of Language and Culture Studies)

We created this guidebook to provide easy-to-understand information on pregnancy and childbirth to foreign residents who want to have a baby and raise a child in Fuchu City. We hope that this guidebook will be of help to those who do not know who to ask questions about child-rearing or who cannot find necessary information. The Fuchu City Hall and the Fuchu International Exchange Salon actively contributed their opinions to the creation of this guidebook. Based on their input, we, the students of the seminar, went through a process of trial and error, and were able to successfully complete the project. Thank you very much for your cooperation.

Ms. MASUI Chikako (3rd year student, Malay, School of Language and Culture Studies)

This time, we created a guidebook for non-native speakers of Japanese on the theme of pregnancy, childbirth, and child rearing. The seminar students had many discussions about how to explain complicated information in simple Japanese and how to design a guidebook that is easy to pick up and use. We hope that this guidebook will be of help to foreign nationals who are welcoming new children and raising families in Japan.