BlogNotices from the International Relations Department

With the goal of promoting international understanding among citizens, Sendai World Festa was first held in 1992 as a place where citizen groups active in areas including international exchange, international cooperation, and multiculturalism could gather. Ever since then, Sendai World Festa was held yearly thanks to the cooperation of a great number of supporters, and we were able to provide a place where citizens could engage in international understanding and exchange.
Sendai World Festa was cancelled in 2020 in an effort to reduce the number of COVID-19 infections, although even now we find ourselves in a situation where restarting the event this year remains difficult due to the fact that the end of this pandemic still seemed far off as we entered the middle of 2021. On the part of the Sendai Tourism, Convention and Association which acts as the executive office of Sendai World Festa, we feel there is a pressing need to increase the amount of multilingual information we provide and create more opportunities for daily exchange among citizens, as the number of foreign-born residents increases in Sendai and our needed role continues to change, in order for foreign residents to live together as fellow members of the local community, and so that we are able to put forth the proper amount of effort into programs that these citizens can make use of. Therefore, as a result of continual deliberations with planning committee members which were involved in past events, it was decided to bring an end to the Sendai World Festa program.
We would like to deeply thank each and every person who visited and cooperated with Sendai World Festa over these many years. Our organization hopes that the citizens of Sendai will continue to appreciate international exchange and multicultural events around the city in the future.