July 14, 2015 - The TOMODACHI Initiative and Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (“Honda”) are pleased to announce the second year of the “TOMODACHI Honda Cultural Exchange Program” in which high school students from Iwate prefecture travel to California for a cultural exchange experience. This program showcases Honda’s unique way of supporting the education and development of future U.S.-Japan leaders through an experiential learning program theme,“Music as a Universal Language”.Guided by Honda’s corporate slogan “The Power of Dreams,” this program helps to forge friendships and deepens the understanding between people in the United States and Japan while giving renewed hope to young people from the disaster-hit Tohoku region of Japan.

Fully funded by Honda, this year the program will send 15 Japanese high school students from the disaster-affected prefecture of Iwate to Los Angeles, California for a two week exchange program from December 25, 2015 to January 9, 2016. They will participate in an iconic American New Year’s tradition, the historic Rose Parade sponsored by American Honda Motor Co., Inc.

Applications will be accepted starting on July 15, 2015. Interested students are encouraged to attend the information sessions in Ofunato and Morioka on August 1 and 2, respectively. For more information and to apply for the TOMODACHI Honda Cultural Exchange Program, visit http://www.eiljapan.org/honda.

Honda Motor Co., Ltd.: +81-3-5412-1514
TOMODACHI Initiative: TOMODACHI@usjapancouncil.org