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TOMODACHI Social Innovation in Seattle Scholars (SIIS) Program

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On March 3, 2014, 25 Japanese university students and young professionals arrived in Seattle, Washington for the TOMODACHI Social Innovation in Seattle Scholars (SIIS).

Over the course of the month-long program, the scholars took part in a vast array of activities. Their itinerary consisted of site visits, leadership training workshops, and presentations from business and community leaders.

DACT for Japan eventuring their time in Seattle, the scholars participated in various activities and site visits to organizations throughout the community. Ahead of the 3rd anniversary of the March 11th Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami the group volunteered at the all-day event ACT for JAPAN. They visited Farestart, a culinary job training and placement program for homeless people, Theo Chocolate, a Seattle-based company producing organic and fair trade chocolate. The students also met Kristin Hayden, an Ashoka Fellow, a leading social entrepreneur in the field of global leadership education, and Founder of OneWorld Now! Furthermore, Seattle, with its vibrant Japanese-American community, offered participants numerous opportunities to visit organizations that served Japanese Americans, such as the Hokubei Hochi (North American Post) Foundation.

 

“These young people really are having a Meet-with-Tom-Ikeda_websitetransformative experience,” Britt Yamamoto, the founder of iLeap, who organized a leadership training workshop, observed, “We are witnessing clear articulations about how this experience is deepening their leadership, clarifying their future path, and raising their motivation for being the next generation of leadership in Japan.”

 

 

Scholars Natsumi Mishio (Nagoya College) and Yukie Hosoda (Keio University graduate), talk about their experience of the first half of the program in the clips below:

Natsumi Mishio on being a TOMODACHI Scholar

Yukie Hosoda on being a TOMODACHI Scholar and her future in Tohoku
 

Members of the U.S.-Japan Council(USJC) actively participated in the program as speakers and team mentors for the Community Partner organization projects. Tom Ikeda, for example, gave a presentation that included an introduction to Japanese-American history. For many of the students, this was their first time hearing about the experiences for Americans of Japanese heritage in the United States, which sparked a lively dialogue about leadership, social entrepreneurship, and prejudice/minority issues. Such was the eager and intelligent nature of the students, however, that many of the USJC members felt that they themselves had learned a lot from the program.

Mr. Harold Taniguchi shares his thoughts on being a USJC Member and a Team Mentor for the TOMODACHI iLEAP SIIS program.

The program culminated in participants doing Community Partner Organization projects. The following five organizations, Densho, Global Partnerships, Goodwill, JungleCity.com and Microsoft, each hosted their own scholar groups and assigned a project to their group. The scholars greatly impressed the organizations that hosted them with the standard of their projects. Some of their ideas are listed below:

  • Developing a complete marketing plan

  • Developing an education program including metrics for evaluation

  • Market analysis and strategies for entering new markets

The program concluded on Friday, March 29th, with final project presentations to the leaders of the Community Partner Organizations. A graduation ceremony and reception followed, which was a festive celebration of the scholars’ successful completion of the program.

 

Watch videos of the four scholars presenting here: http://bit.ly/1fv9yvq

 

Read the scholars’ reflections on the program in the blogs listed below.

 

Follow events of the program on social media: 

Twitter: #SIIS and #iLEAP

Facebook: iLEAP

Meet the TOMODACHI iLEAP SIIS Scholars! View their profiles here  

 

 

US-Japan Council
Embassy of the United States Tokyo, Japan