Greetings from the President

On 1 April, I took office as president of the Japan Alumnae Association of the Sacred Heart (JASH), succeeding Reiko Kobori, who had so remarkably and successfully accomplished her four-year mandate.

I have spent virtually all my life since 1949 at the Sacred Heart：as a student from kindergarten to graduate school and as a part-time lecturer at the university ever since graduation. I hope that to serve JASH might be another sincere expression of my gratitude for what I owe to the Sacred Heart.

JASH consists of eight local alumnae associations of the Sacred Heart schools in Japan. At the same time, JASH itself is one of the thirty-six associations comprising the world association of alumnae and alumni of the Sacred Heart, Association　Mondiale des Anciennes et Anciens du Sacré-Coeur (AMASC). Thus we are a unique worldwide family bound together with an invisible tie--the common appreciation of values beyond differences.

As my first duty, I attended the XIV World Congress of AMASC held in Malta with Reiko Kobori and twenty-six other JASH members. A report on this meeting will be made later on this website.

All the member associations of JASH are very active in enhancing friendship among their members, coordinating welfare work, and supporting the alma mater. Yet they have common concerns, for example, of how to involve the young members in alumnae activities.

In such a situation I believe that the role of JASH is to make smoother the communication among the member associations. For this purpose, JASH offers opportunities for its members to think together, to discuss together, and to work together.

I will try my best to help JASH continue developing as it has done for the past forty-six years. I sincerely ask every one of you, JASH members, for your cooperation.

Thank you very much.
Kimiko Hotta
(Sacred Heart School, Tokyo ‘63, University of the Sacred Heart ‘67)

What is JASH? What is AMASC?

Japan Alumnae Association of the Sacred Heart, abbreviated as JASH, is an organization that unites eight alumnae associations of the Sacred Heart Schools in Japan. JASH was founded in 1964 in order to join AMASC, which was then in the process of being established in Europe as a unifying organization of all the alumnae associations of the Sacred Heart Schools in the world. Since then, JASH has been cooperating with AMASC in every respect.

In March, 1986, the eighth AMASC Congress was held in Tokyo under the theme "Inter-cultural Communication." From the following year in 1987, March 16 has been observed as JASH DAY in commemoration of the opening of the Tokyo Congress which remains the first and only AMASC Congress to be held in Asia. On this day, over two hundred JASH members gather to have a meeting with a different agenda each year followed by a luncheon. For the luncheon, JASH extends invitation to the Sacred Heart alumnae of other countries living in Japan.

Association Mondiale des Anciennes et Anciens du Sacré-Coeur, abbreviated as AMASC, is a unique worldwide organization to which alumnae associations of the Sacred Heart Schools from 36 nations are affiliated. It officially came to birth in Brussels in 1965, but it was in 1958 when its predecessor, the "World Assembly," was first held in the same city.
All the graduates of the Sacred Heart Schools in Japan are members of JASH, and through JASH, a part of AMASC.

JASH Activities

The primary role of JASH is to ensure ongoing communication among its eight member associations. JASH also extends support to the needs of the RSCJs who have operated the Sacred Heart Schools in Japan for more than a hundred years. Moreover, JASH involves itself in the activities of AMASC.

The three working committees within JASH are:

*Hospitality Committee

As a part of the worldwide network of AMASC hospitality, this committee offers hospitality to the members of AMASC, the Sacred Heart students, RSCJs, and their families, who visit Japan from abroad. It also hosts the annual luncheon on JASH DAY.The committee issues the international AMASC passport licensed by AMASC to JASH members who want to make contact with the alumnae of the Sacred Heart when going abroad.

*AMASC Tokyo Congress Commemorative Fund Committee

The 1986 AMASC Tokyo Congress was able to establish the Commemorative Fund which helps the committee to finance various events to nurture the interest and commitment of young JASH members to the activities of AMASC and JASH. To this end, the committee has organized essay contests, sleepover workshops, informal talk sessions over dinner and tea prepared by its members, etc. The committee's focal project is to take several young members to the AMASC Congress every four years. The committee also issues at irregular intervals "The Sacred Heart Family Newsletter."

*Archives Committee

This committee collects, classifies, and preserves all the historical material related to the Sacred Heart in Japan. The committee has collected about 2300 items such as photographs, certificates, textbooks, printed matters, school uniforms, and school pins. The committee has held numerous exhibitions of the items collected on commemorative occasions such as JASH DAY. In 1994, the committee published the chronology of the Sacred Heart in Japan, which has had two revised editions since then. Also it has edited two memoirs based on the reminiscences of the old school days told by some old RSCJs, teachers, and alumnae. Thus the committee aims to pass on the spirit of our foundress, Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat, to the succeeding generations.