What is the JAUF Scholarship Program About?
How Scholarship Winners Chosen?
What Does the Scholarship Cover?
Who Can I Talk to About the Program?
What is the JAUF Scholarship Program About?
The Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga's Japanese-American
Understanding Fund (JAUF) was established in 1990 by a grant from
NA Industries, a polymer manufacturer located in Chattanooga's riverport,
and its parent company, Nippon Shokubai Co., Ltd. The program's
purpose is to provide Chattanooga area high school students with
the opportunity to increase their cultural understanding of Japan
and its people.
The Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga retains the services of Youth for Understanding (YFU) International Exchange, headquartered in Bethesda, MD, to coordinate the exchange program. The Community Foundation entrusts YFU because of the organization's international reputation and its over 40 years of experience in preparing students for cultural exchanges, arranging for their travel, assuring they are placed in nurturing host family environments and bringing them home enriched by their experience.
The Community Foundation's JAUF Committee, which oversees the program and conducts the student semi-finalist interviews, is composed of Chattanooga area secondary school and university educators and administrators and officers of NA Industries.
Since its inception, the JAUF program has provided over 60 Chattanooga students from more than 15 public and private schools with the opportunity to travel to Japan.
How Are Scholarship Winners Chosen?
Recipients are selected
through a competitive process based on academic achievement, teacher
recommendations, written essays and personal interviews.
YFU and the JAUF Committee look for qualities that promote a successful intercultural adjustment. Those include open-mindedness, a sense of humor, good coping skills, communicativeness, flexibility, adaptability, curiosity, tolerance for differences, positive and realistic expectations, a positive regard for others and a strong sense of self. The JAUF Committee will also be interested in each candidate's motivation for wanting to travel to Japan.
What Does the Scholarship Cover?
The JAUF program
offers up to eight
summer program scholarships. The Community Foundation's JAUF program provides
a generous scholarship, covering round-trip domestic and international
travel, student orientations, support materials and placement with
a host family.
The Community Foundation also provides the recipients with a limited amount of spending money.
The recipient is responsible only for passport, overseas medical insurance and extra spending money.
There is also a $35 application fee, which the Community Foundation will waive for applicants who demonstrate significant financial need. Call YFU at 1.800.673.2728 to see if you qualify.
Due to the scope of the JAUF scholarships, no interested student should consider himself or herself ineligible because of limited finances.
Who Can I Talk to About the Program?
The Community
Foundation will be happy to arrange for interested students and
their parents to speak with students or parents who have already
participated in the JAUF program.
Since the program was established in 1990, over 60 Chattanooga area students have traveled to Japan through the program. Those students and their parents can put interested individuals' minds at ease regarding any concerns that might naturally arise.
Or, contact the Community Foundation's with questions about the program.
For more information call YFU at 1.800.TEENAGE.
