June 26, 2018
https://www.sylff.org/support_programs/leaders_workshop/
The Sylff Association secretariat thanks all those who submitted applications to participate in the Sylff Leaders Workshop. We received 114 applications from 45 Sylff institutions for approximately 20 positions, ensuring that a diverse group of fellows will take part in the discussions and other programs of the workshop. The applications are currently being reviewed, and we hope to announce the names of the accepted fellows soon.
June 7, 2018
By 19632
Indigenous knowledge and practice are critical on Kolombangara Island, but they are often not visible in discussions of conservation and resource management. In response, Sylff fellow Joe McCarter and the Kolombangara Island Biodiversity Conservation Association (KIBCA) initiated a workshop to discuss cultural revitalization, as well as teach practical documentation skills to rangers and community members. The workshop was held in Hunda, a village on Kolombangara Island in the Solomon Islands’ Western Province, and was led by representatives of the Vanuatu Cultural Center (VCC). The VCC team included three fieldworkers (ni-Vanuatu researchers) and the head of the Vanuatu Women’s Culture Program. The workshop covered a variety of topics, including the challenges and ethics of cultural maintenance, techniques and best practice, and the importance of such activities. On the final day, the group came up with several action points and next steps, including community and home-based recording and maintenance and agreed to create a new network focused on Kolombangara Island and run through KIBCA.
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Indigenous knowledge and practice are important components of everyday life in the Solomon Islands. Most people live in rural areas, and gardening, fishing, and food gathering are the basis of income and nutrition. Most land is managed under customary tenure, and people’s links to the land can be traced back several generations. Local languages and cultures are important and diverse, and cultural practices guide interactions and governance over much of the country.
On Kolombangara Island, a high volcanic island in Western Province, local knowledge and practice play a key role. Over 6,000 people live on the island, largely in small rural communities on land that is managed under customary tenure. Kolombangara is a biodiversity hotspot, and KIBCA has been working since 2008 to coordinate and promote biodiversity conservation activities around the island. However, there has been little attention to the maintenance of language and kastom (a Solomon Island Pijin concept referring to history and tradition), and KIBCA has been seeking to increase its focus on maintenance and revitalization.
This work is driven by fears that elements of kastom are being lost. In the present day, local language and knowledge are often not valued by education systems, cash economies, and the time pressure of everyday life. For example, school systems usually focus on Western educational techniques and may not support traditional forms of knowledge transmission. There is concern that this may lead to the erosion of knowledge, practice, and language over time. In everyday life, knowledge of language and history can help students to excel at school and can guide healthy food practice based on local and organic food produce.
Moreover, and more pressingly, ongoing commercial logging on Kolombangara continues to threaten sacred sites and people’s links to land. Often, logging operations will destroy cultural sites (for example, old village sites or shrines), which in turn weakens knowledge and the cultural histories associated with place. Because land is under customary tenure, and this knowledge is often orally transmitted, these activities can result in people losing their claim to land and a reduction of the biocultural values of the landscape.
With generous funding from Sylff Leadership Initiatives, KIBCA coordinator Ferguson Vaghi and Joe McCarter worked together to bring participants to Kolombangara the maintenance of knowledge and practice. This was relevant to KIBCA’s work because it focuses on maintaining ecosystem services and values associated with intact biodiversity areas. Vaghi led and facilitated the workshop, set workshop goals and objectives, and liaised with the Hunda community to arrange accommodation and housing for the workshop. I assisted with designing the workshop, liaising with the Vanuatu group, arranging logistics, and setting the agenda for the meeting.
Participants outside the venue in Hunda.
The major goal of the workshop was to allow the chance for exchange between Kolombangara and fieldworkers from the Vanuatu Cultural Center (VCC). The VCC group comprised Evelyne Bulegih, Numaline Mahana, Chief Jimesan Sanhambath, and Chief Joachim Moleli. The VCC has been working for over 30 years to promote the maintenance of traditional knowledge, practice, and language. The heart of its operation is the presence of a nationwide network of over 100 “fieldworkers”, volunteer indigenous anthropologists who meet annually and are trained in various forms of cultural documentation. They typically work within their own community to record cultural histories and traditional knowledge, which are then stored in the community and in the national archives. The fieldworkers also act as the gatekeepers for external agencies seeking to work on cultural or social issues in Vanuatu, providing advice and guidance that ensure that ethical concerns and intellectual property are appropriately addressed.
The objectives of the workshop were to:
Attendance varied between 20 and 23 people across the three days of the workshop. Participants included KIBCA staff, among whom were four rangers (responsible for carrying out KIBCA’s work, including enforcement and awareness activities); community representatives from the neighboring communities of Votuana, Cana, and Ireke, as well as from the host community Hunda; and community representatives from Vavanga and Kalina (Parara Island), which also form part of a biocultural network. These representatives included two village chiefs. Attendance was largely male, but there were at least five women attending each day of the workshop.
The meeting was held at Hunda, a small village of around 200 people on Kolombangara. All catering and accommodation were provided by the village.
Vanuatu and New Zealand workshop participants: from left to right, Joachim Moleli, Evelyne Bulegih, Joe McCarter, Numaline Mahana, and Jimesan Sanhambath.
Wednesday, February 21
The aim of day one was to understand the context of work in the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. The meeting was opened by the chief of Hunda village and then formally begun by Vaghi. During the day, participants worked to compile lists of challenges around the maintenance of kastom and culture in their communities. The Vanuatu fieldworkers were able to provide input to these solutions with their practical experience. Discussions particularly focused on governance and how it was important to record knowledge on genealogies and leadership protocol; the participants felt that one of the key issues in the communities at the moment was a lack of legitimate leadership, combined with a lack of respect from youth. In the final part of the day, the Vanuatu fieldworkers went into greater depth about their work, including a discussion of some of the challenges of maintaining kastom and culture in Vanuatu.
Waiting for the workshop to start on day one.
Thursday, February 22
The aim of the second day was to pass on skills to assist with some of the challenges that were identified on the first day. The day began with a discussion of the “kastom economy” and the ways in which tradition and culture intersect with daily life in the village environment. For example, Chief Moleli discussed an initiative in his community, Tavendrua, to use traditional wealth items such as yams and pigs to pay teachers in the kastom school, while Mrs. Mahana discussed traditional marriage arrangements on Tanna Island. Participants then split into small groups to document the kastom economy in their communities. These groups focused on a variety of topics including traditional medicines, fishing techniques, and exchange items. In the afternoon, there was a practical session on the maintenance and recording of kastom and culture. Each of the fieldworkers gave a talk and held trainings on an area within their expertise: Mrs. Bulegih discussed the written recording and storage of kastom stories, Mrs. Mahana the written descriptions of weaving and woven products, Chief Moleli the recording of kastom stories, and Chief Sanhambath the use of handheld units to document sacred sites. The focus on all these presentations was to try to make sure that participants understood that technology should not be central for this work—that it is better to record things in a basic format (e.g., with pen and paper) and store it securely, to ensure that it is accessible to future generations.
Small group work on day two (photo by Piokera Holland).
Friday, February 23
The aim of the third day was to define next steps. Throughout the day, participants worked in small groups to define what practical steps could be taken to halt the erosion of kastom and culture. These were discussed in a closing plenary session. Topics included home-based recording with family members, consultation throughout the communities to decide which components of traditional knowledge and practice are at risk, and a cultural documentation network run through KIBCA. The group decided it was important to maintain linkages with the Vanuatu group, through Facebook and email, so that lessons could continue to be shared.
Saturday, February 24, and Sunday, February 25
On Saturday and Sunday, the Vanuatu group traveled to Imbu Rano field station on Kolombangara. During this trip they were able to observe KIBCA’s biodiversity conservation work in practice, as well as learn about threats to the area and the challenges that the rangers face on a daily basis.
The workshop was lively, well attended, and able to produce the outputs that were intended. These included:
We are confident that these outputs will lead to a range of outcomes. For one, this workshop gave the Solomon Island participants an introduction to the skills needed to monitor, record, and maintain cultural knowledge and practice, including the mapping of sacred sites around their home communities. More importantly, the discussions and activities of the workshop provided a forum for dialogue on the value of cultural knowledge and practice, which can sometimes be lost in the day-to-day focus on livelihoods and living. The participants agreed to some solid and measurable next steps, so we are confident that this workshop was a first step toward an ongoing network of cultural monitors and the maintenance of knowledge and practice on Kolombangara.
Over the longer term, we see these efforts as being a small but necessary contribution to the overall goal of maintaining the biocultural resilience of rural communities in the Solomon Islands. Both cultural and biological diversity are critical to the ongoing vitality of communities, and we believe that more of these kinds of activities and discussions are needed into the future.
From both a personal and a professional standpoint, it was a pleasure to be involved in organizing this meeting. On a personal level, it was a privilege to reconnect with the VCC group after several years, and it was exciting to begin to foster some dialogue around the importance of kastom and culture on Kolombangara. The VCC has been a regionally leading institution, and there would be much to be gained from further collaboration. From a professional standpoint, it is clear that the maintenance of knowledge and practice should form a key plank of ongoing efforts to support conservation work around the island. This work aligns well with other Kolombangara projects, including a push by KIBCA to seek national park status for the area above 400 m. The partnership with KIBCA was absolutely critical to the success of the meeting, and while there were challenges (for example, arranging logistics for Hunda, setting the agenda remotely, and the difficulties of scheduling across several different calendars), Vaghi and his team worked hard to make the meeting a success. I look forward to our working together to turn the discussions in the workshop into solid progress over the remainder of 2018 and 2019.
Find more details of the project in the original report.
May 21, 2018
May 10, 2018
By null
Local Association Networking Support (LANS) is a new support program intended to facilitate the organization of gatherings and other activities by groups of Sylff alumni, including local Sylff associations. Groups of five or more fellows and alumni from the same institution can apply to the Sylff Association for a maximum of US$5,000 per gathering to cover the long-distance transportation costs of participating fellows. This program was launched in September 2017, and the Jadavpur University Sylff Association (JU-Sylff Association) was the first to take advantage of it. In March 2018 the association organized a two-day event in Kolkata, India, inviting JU-Sylff fellows from Britain, Ireland, and other parts of India. The following is an introduction to the JU-Sylff Association and a report on the meeting organized by it.
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INTRODUCTION
The LANS Meet in progress.
The JU-Sylff Association was delighted to learn about Local Association Networking Support (LANS), the newly introduced Sylff support program. We felt that the grant recognized and encouraged the strong spirit of group work that the JU-Sylff Association has always upheld. LANS offered an excellent opportunity to bring together fellows, graduated and current, to discuss their own individual research and brainstorm over collective goals to address social, cultural, and environmental issues that concern us all in different ways.
It was in 2005 that the JU-Sylff Program launched its association with the generous support of the Tokyo Foundation’s Sylff Network Program (SNP). For the first three years the JU-Sylff Association was reliant on the SNP for financial support, but for the last 10 years we have continued our activities unabated with contributions from Sylff fellows and financial support from the university and the Sylff Steering Committee.
Every week the researchers—current and, if they are in town, graduated fellows—come for Monday meetings to discuss research, activities of the association, and larger sociopolitical issues with Professor Joyashree Roy, the project director. Depending on our areas of research, we are often prompted to get in touch with a graduated fellow in some part of the world who can help us answer questions raised in our work or give us a lead as to how our work can be translated into some meaningful action within our society.
About once a month the association organizes the JU-Sylff Lecture Series, where academics and activists, under the JU-Sylff banner, engage with Sylff and non-Sylff students and researchers of the university. Intense and focused discussions follow, as the lectures bring together a small group of interested researchers. These lectures are frequently delivered by graduated Sylff fellows, further providing a platform to interact and exchange ideas. The JU-Sylff Annual Newsletter, Fellows, also provides a useful forum for current and graduated researchers to discuss their work.
When the LANS grant was announced, we saw an opportunity to bring together in the same physical space graduated and current fellows, as well as mentors, to discuss our work and imagine ways in which our and Sylff’s larger goals can be achieved through teamwork and capacity building. Interaction with graduated fellows and mentors helps us develop our ideas and become better researchers, but it is largely limited to either email correspondence or personal meetings with those who happen to be in the city. The LANS Meet could also provide a platform for current and graduated fellows to showcase their extracurricular skills. JU-Sylff fellows who are currently working in different institutions across the world are doing outstanding work. We felt that the opportunity to bring them together, allowing to share their diverse and inspiring stories, could give us fresh energy to pursue our goals and ambitions and to think bigger.
The meet was conceptualized and organized by all participating Sylff fellows, but it would not have been possible without the special commitment of and team building done by Ritajyoti Bandyopadhyay, Payoshni Mitra, Purbasha Auddy, Sudeshna Dutta, Sujaan Mukherjee, and Sritama Chatterjee, with invaluable guidance from Professor Roy.
On March 21, graduated and current fellows began trickling into Jadavpur University well before the scheduled time of the inaugural LANS Meet. They greeted each other enthusiastically, reminiscing with old colleagues and making friends with new faces. We were honored to have with us Ms. Mari Suzuki, Sylff Association, director for leadership development of the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research, who came especially to be a part of this special event. Her presence offered great encouragement to the fellows, and we were able to understand clearly that the goals we had set for ourselves were indeed in harmony with the larger Sylff mission and goals: to identify and support leaders for the future.
Apart from the fellows, many mentors of the JU-Sylff Program were present for the meet, including Professor Emerita Supriya Chaudhuri, Professor Amlan Dasgupta, Professor Samantak Das, Professor Paromita Chakravarti, Professor Sibashish Chatterjee, and Professor Kavita Panjabi. Members of the JU-Sylff Steering Committee attending the meet were Mr. Gour Krishna Pattanayak and Dr. Sanjay Gopal Sarkar, finance officer and joint registrar of Jadavpur University, respectively. The mentors and members of the Steering Committee have been with the Sylff community right from the program’s inception in 2003, when Jadavpur University was awarded a Sylff endowment.
In the august company of the Sylff fraternity, the latest issue of Fellows was introduced by Ms. Suzuki. The eleventh issue of Fellows addresses questions of academics’ role within and outside the walls of academia and their responsibility toward society at large. From this year, the newsletter will feature a guest editor from among graduated fellows, so as to increase the space for involvement and exchange.
Events were set in motion by Professor Roy, JU-Sylff project director. With Professor Chaudhuri chairing the opening session, fellows made brief presentations about their work; they had encapsulated their work in one slide each. With the same passion that had driven the fellows during their research under Sylff—and stayed with them afterward—they spoke about their work: their goals, their challenges, and their successes. They were also encouraged to think beyond their completed projects and speak to the assembled gathering about their dreams. What more did they want to do, not just individually but through teamwork?
On the one hand, the fellows spoke about the benefits that the Sylff program at Jadavpur University had offered them: through Monday meetings, progress report workshops, and the lecture series, it helped them structure their research and think beyond their own disciplines, indeed beyond the walls of academia. Many of the JU-Sylff fellows have incorporated into their work a strong sense of activism, as they try to make a positive impact on the society of which they are a part. This has happened at both the macro and micro levels, but it becomes evident from each fellow’s career that their leadership skills are growing from strength to strength.
As the discussion gathered momentum, new ideas and areas of common interest emerged. Among such areas are women’s rights and gender studies; studies of marginalized castes and communities; urban studies; sports; documentation and archive building; and the performing arts. The fellows decided that the best way to map these idea clusters was to put them in visual form. This was achieved by writing down ideas on sticky notes and arranging them on a whiteboard. What it reflected was how, by putting the individual voices together, a holistic idea of social development automatically emerged. The next step, naturally, was how to put these into action.
The dialogue on capacity building, which was one of the initial goals of LANS Meet 2018, began. In keeping with the theme of the latest issue of Fellows, the discussion evolved around the ways in which the research that is conducted under the Sylff program could be disseminated in an efficient way so as to positively impact society at large. It was suggested that the JU-Sylff Association should focus on outreach. A number of ideas were put forth: along with the existing lecture series, a new Capacity Building Workshop Series was proposed, where Sylff fellows and mentors could offer workshops for the Jadavpur University student community on various skill sets, such as text editing, the ethics of fieldwork, and the use of archives. Potential plans for JU-Sylff LANS Meet 2019 were discussed in the hope that LANS will become an annual event in the JU-Sylff Association’s calendar.
Sylff fellows who are currently based in semi- or nonurban institutions suggested that the association could take upon itself a project to introduce students attending college in such areas to the idea of higher education and research as a viable career path. All fellows agreed that such dialogues are essential and should be the responsibility of fellows who are associated with a platform like Sylff.
Fellows who have worked with marginalized groups or with human subjects in the hope of finding solutions to the problems they face in society proposed that for the next LANS Meet (2019), a dialogue could be set up between other Sylff fellows and mentors and the individuals with whom they have interacted during the course of their research. This would not only allow researchers under the Sylff program to gain invaluable insights into the work done by their peers; it would also help give back to these communities some part of the knowledge generated through the addition of interpretive value by the researcher they have worked with.
Ms. Suzuki offered clarity in her description of the existing and new Sylff support programs, encouraging the JU-Sylff fellows to think big and plan ahead before applying for them. Fellows whose applications have been successful and those whose applications have not discussed how to write such proposals. Rimple Mehta spoke at length about her process. Sreerupa Sengupta remarked that what she found most valuable during the application process was that at each stage the reviewers at Sylff pushed her to think harder about the practicalities of her plan, while answering questions and informing her where her application could be improved. The Sylff Project Grant was mentioned, and ideas were exchanged about possible projects that might be supported by it.
Informal evening session.
Ms. Suzuki, Professor Roy, and the Sylff fellows made their way to the Global Change Program office on campus, where an informal cultural program took place. Fellows were able to showcase their extracurricular talents, as they conducted theater workshops, sang, and played music for everyone’s enjoyment.
The first day’s events ended on a note of great optimism. The fellows were energized, having connected with former peers and met new friends.
Serving lunch to the resident patients.
As part of the JU-Sylff Association’s Social Action Program, current fellows visit Premananda Memorial Leprosy Hospital each year. While this is always a fulfilling experience for the fellows and for the resident patients at the hospital, this year was exceptional. Unlike other years, the association linked the Social Action Program with the LANS Meet. This meant that graduated fellows, who had organized and visited the hospital during their time under Sylff, were able to revisit in a large group. Adding to that, we were honored to have with us Ms. Suzuki. Shounak Adhikari (MA, 2017) coordinated this year’s Social Action Program. Graduated and current fellows came forward enthusiastically to make this event a success.
The association bus reached the hospital at 11 am. After an opening address by Ms. Suzuki, Dr. Helen Roberts, who is superintendent of the hospital, gave a presentation on various aspects of leprosy and the activities of the Leprosy Mission Trust of India (TLMTI), whose history goes back 143 years. She informed us about how leprosy-affected people used to gather in the graveyard that now belongs to the hospital and, watching them in pain, Reverend Premananda Sen of the Oxford Mission started a dispensary for them. This eventually turned into a hospital.
Dr. Roberts spoke about recent advances in leprosy treatment and the ways in which the disease spreads. Twice a year healthcare workers go from house to house on behalf of the Leprosy Mission Trust to find persons showing symptoms of leprosy, and due to this initiative 30 percent more cases have been detected in the last two years compared to previous years. The hospital has started producing custom-made shoes for leprosy patients, which are now also delivered to other hospitals throughout the state. After the presentation, Ms. Roberts interacted with the fellows and answered their questions.
With the contributions from the JU-Sylff fraternity, the fellows planned different aspects of the visit, including offering medical supplies to augment the hospital’s stock, presenting gifts (such as board games) to the patients, and decorating the hospital wards using stickers. A special lunch was also arranged for the patients.
Upon arriving, the fellows distributed the gifts and handed the medical supplies to the hospital. A popular film, Tiger Zinda Hai, was screened. The film is chosen every year based on the preferences expressed by the patients. It is usually a popular Bollywood film that makes a positive impact on the morale of the residents. During an intermission, the special lunch was served by the fellows. The hospital staff took the fellows to the factory where the special shoes are made and demonstrated their craft.
Graduated fellows decorating the hospital walls.
While the patients were watching the movie, the fellows went to the wards and decorated the walls with floral stickers. All the participants, including Ms. Suzuki, joined in the decoration. When the patients came for lunch, they were delighted to find the decorations. All the fellows personally interacted and spoke with every patient. Some patients returned to watch the movie after lunch, while others stayed in their wards for routine checkup and physiotherapy. Meanwhile staff members, doctors, and Sylff fellows had their lunch together.
After the day’s proceedings, the team departed from the hospital, looking forward to the next visit to Premananda Memorial Leprosy Hospital and hoping that, in the following years, the event will be as much a success as it was during LANS Meet 2018.
Group photograph of LANS Meet participants.
It came as a happy, although not unexpected, surprise that fellows began writing their ideas for next year’s LANS Meet shortly after the inaugural gathering on April 21 and 22, 2018. The JU-Sylff Association has created a space where such ideas are to be stored for future reference, so that the planning for the next proposed LANS Meet can accommodate an even richer array of ideas.
After the success of the first LANS Meet at Jadavpur University, we feel that in subsequent such gatherings more ambitious plans may be brought to bear fruit, as we hope to involve not only a greater number of JU-Sylff fellows but also others who are involved with the research that is being conducted under the program at Jadavpur University and to take the mission of Sylff beyond the walls of the university, and indeed of academia, to ensure a sustainable future for society at large.
May 9, 2018
Sylff Project Grant (SPG) is a new support program launched in September 2017. The program awards grants of up to $100,000 to support projects led by Sylff fellows with the aim of contributing to the resolution of a social issue. Selection criteria favor projects that take an innovative, sustainable approach and have high potential for social impact. Grantees must personify the Sylff mission and demonstrate the kind of leadership and commitment needed to spearhead social change.
In March 2018, the first grant was awarded to Yutaka Tokushima, recipient of a 2016–17 Sylff fellowship at Keio University’s Shonan Fujisawa Campus. In the following overview and interview, we profile the project’s leader, his previous accomplishments as a Sylff fellow, and his plans for translating those achievements into an enterprise with sustained social impact.
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Yutaka Tokushima is a doctoral student at Keio University specializing in fabrication design. Hoping to use his expertise for the good of society, Tokushima initiated a project aimed at leveraging digital technology to provide affordable prosthetic legs to low-income individuals in the Philippines.
Owing to dietary issues, diabetes is a growing problem among the poor in many developing countries, and when patients are poorly informed about their condition and its control, the complications can lead to amputation of the lower extremities. Unable to work, amputees typically sink deeper into poverty. A conventional artificial limb, which must be assembled by highly skilled artisans from multiple parts and a variety of materials, can cost anywhere between $3,000 and $9,000 in the Philippines. For someone subsisting on less than $400 a year, such a purchase is unthinkable. Yet an artificial limb would allow many of these amputees to find work and support themselves.
A 3D-printed prosthetic leg prototype and 3D printer (right).
In an effort to surmount these critical cost obstacles, Tokushima developed a system that uses 3D printing and machine learning to fabricate prosthetic legs entirely from plastic. The process yields dramatic savings, first of all, by eliminating the need for expensive materials. In addition, the application of a 3D printing system using software with machine-learning capabilities greatly reduces the need for advanced professional skills in the fabrication process. As a result, artificial legs can be created at a small fraction of the cost of conventional prostheses, putting them within reach of low-income amputees in developing countries.
Next, Tokushima set up a company, Instalimb, which is currently conducting clinical trials of 3D-printed prosthetic legs in Metro Manila. If all goes well, he plans to launch a social business in the form of a joint venture and begin providing 3D-printed prosthetic solutions on a commercial basis in Manila sometime in 2019. The next step will be to explore ways of expanding that business model to sparsely populated areas and outlying islands, where cost and accessibility hurdles are particularly high.
Tokushima believes he has a mission to apply his expertise in fabrication design to help better the lives of people in the developing world. He also believes that, in order to ensure lasting social impact, assistance from the developed world must focus on giving local citizens the means to tackle their communities’ issues themselves.
In the following interview, Yutaka Tokushima spoke with me about his goals and aspirations for the project recently awarded an SPG. (Interview conducted by Keita Sugai on March 26, 2018, at the offices of the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research.)
Yutaka Tokushima, left, with program officer Keita Sugai.
— What made you decide you to undertake the development of a 3D-printed prosthetic solution?
YUTAKA TOKUSHIMA: It all started when I was working in Bohol, in the Philippines, with the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers [JOCV] under the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
The digital fabrication technology already existed. I was wondering if that technology could be used to help people in Bohol help themselves. I realized that 3D printing was a groundbreaking technology that could give low-income individuals access to powerful fabrication tools even on a tiny island like Bohol.
— Why did you choose Metro Manila as your market?
TOKUSHIMA: I’ve always thought that I’d like to do something to contribute to development in Southeast Asia, and when I joined the JOCV, I was sent to Bohol. As an outgrowth of my work there, I had the idea of leveraging digital fabrication technology to help the poor via social entrepreneurship. I chose Metro Manila because it’s a big city with a lot of poverty and inadequate access to urban services, and because there’s a widespread feeling that something needs to be done about its social problems. In other words, it was the place that offered the best opportunities for this kind of social enterprise. For me, a key challenge is striking a balance between philanthropy and business viability, and Metro Manila seemed like the best location from that viewpoint.
— We know that you’ve already conducted some trials on a limited basis. What’s been the response from your subjects?
TOKUSHIMA: We’ve had a great response. I remember particularly an elderly man whose leg had been amputated seven years earlier. He couldn’t wait to get back to his job as a cabinetmaker, and his wife was so happy she was crying. It was truly gratifying.
— So, what are your short-term, medium-term, and long-term objectives?
TOKUSHIMA: This year I’m going to continue usability testing to perfect the product, while establishing a business model that can be applied to most third-world cities. I’m also going to make preparations for the launch of my venture business. And I’m going to conduct a feasibility study to gauge the possibility of developing a separate business model geared to remote areas and islands. Medium term, I want to begin offering prosthetic solutions throughout the Philippines within the next three years. Beyond that, I hope to use what I’ve learned in the Philippines to expand to other developing and semi-industrialized countries.
— Do you have any ideas about what you might do next?
TOKUSHIMA: I know that I want to pursue this approach of using new technology to empower developing nations. The traditional model of development assistance was based on a vertical relationship. The donor countries brought in their own materials, equipment, and know-how, and when something broke down or wore out, it was often difficult to fix it. The trend in international cooperation nowadays is toward a horizontal relationship between donor and recipient. There’s a growing emphasis on providing technology that empowers people in the developing world to solve their own problems. I’d like to be a part of that.
— Is there any message you’d like to convey to other Sylff Association members reading this interview?
TOKUSHIMA: Sylff's goals are very consistent with the trend toward horizontal cooperation that I was talking about. The Sylff mission centers on transcending differences and joining together to address the issues confronting society. It’s an honor to be selected for a Sylff Project Grant. For others around the world who are eager to pursue similar projects, I want to say that we’re lucky to be living in a time when there are people who will give us a chance. I want to make the most of that opportunity and provide an example for others by strengthening cooperative ties and making a real difference in the world.
May 7, 2018
By null
In this article, written by the executive director of the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research when the sixth Voices booklet was published, reaffirms the Sylff program’s founding vision and urges all to become active members of the Sylff community.
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This special issue of Voices from the Sylff Community (volume 6) highlights the many new initiatives that have been launched to commemorate Sylff’s thirtieth anniversary in 2017. Having been closely involved in the program since its very inception, I am happy to see how Sylff has grown into an important fellowship program that has helped nurture leaders around the world.
Some of the most prestigious international fellowships three decades ago—such as the Fulbright and Rhodes Scholarships—were national-scale programs that offered outstanding foreign students an opportunity to spend time in the country of the fellowship provider and gain a deeper appreciation of the country’s customs and values.
The guiding principles behind the launch of the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund were similarly centered on supporting the development of future leaders. But rather than focusing on Japan—the country of the donor—Sylff sought to cultivate respect for diversity. Mr. Ryoichi Sasakawa, the late founder of the Nippon Foundation, was keen on nurturing leaders who would work for the common good of all humankind, transcending differences in religion, culture, ethnicity, political systems, and levels of economic development. So Sylff endowments were donated to universities marked by dynamic growth and a diverse, open-minded student body, regardless of the institution’s country, size, or history. Sylff administrators were asked to select fellows not according to a uniform, global standard but on the basis who, in their minds, were most likely to bridge narrow differences and make a positive contribution to their respective communities, regions, and countries.
Nippon Foundation founder Ryoichi Sasakawa, right, with Sylff fellows at Leipzig University in May 1992.
The first institution to receive a Sylff endowment of US$1 million was the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Today, 69 institutions in 44 countries have become members of the Sylff community, providing fellowships with income generated from investing their respective Sylff funds. The amount generated by investing $1 million may have been sizable 30 years ago, especially for developing countries, but as living standards rose with the growth of their economies, the fellowship amount, regrettably, is no longer regarded as being particularly generous. Some universities have been able to overcome this problem by skillfully retaining and reinvesting their Sylff income to expand their capital more than eightfold; they are now able to disburse hundreds of thousands of dollars in Sylff fellowships each year.
The difficulty of generating sufficient investment income has been compounded by the Lehman crisis and the low interest rates that have prevailed since then. As a result, the amount provided as fellowships has dropped markedly at around half of all Sylff institutions, further eroding Sylff’s competitiveness. To break this vicious cycle, the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research (known as the Tokyo Foundation before spring 2018) has—in consultation and partnership with the Nippon Foundation—devised a means of disbursing a guaranteed amount each year to students at Sylff universities. Under this “new financial scheme,” the Sylff funds of participating institutions will be pooled and invested by the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research, and fellowships will be provided directly to graduate students nominated by the steering committees.
When we surveyed the many fellowships available three decades ago, we found that while many government and corporate scholarships existed to support students in the natural sciences, few offered funding for students in the humanities and social sciences. This was another factor behind the decision to direct Sylff fellowships to graduate students in these fields, especially those undertaking research from an international, interdisciplinary perspective.
What qualities do we seek in a Sylff fellow? There is no single answer to this question, as the type of leader society needs will invariably change with the times. While academic excellence is an important asset, it alone is no guarantee of leadership potential. What we look for is an ability to navigate the increasingly complex and interconnected problems confronting modern society; to understand and respect differences in culture and values; and to work for the common good of humankind. We want each of the 69 Sylff institutions in 44 countries to identify future leaders best suited to addressing the issues faces by their respective communities and regions. We have, accordingly, asked some universities to adjust their selection policies in line with this basic aim. Sylff is not a needs-based scholarship, nor should it be turned into a tool to advance government policy. I hope that administrators will keep in mind Mr. Sasakawa’s vision of nurturing leaders who will bridge differences and bring the world closer together as one family.
Sylff and NF-JLEP Association members at the April 2018 gathering in Tokyo to commemorate the launch of the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research.
The Sylff Association was launched in August 2017 in commemoration of Sylff’s thirtieth anniversary. Its members include the over 16,000 current and graduated fellows, the steering committee members at all 69 Sylff institutions, and the staff members of the Nippon Foundation (donor) and the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research (secretariat). The Association creates a single identify for all Sylff stakeholders, and I hope that we will forge even closer ties in the years ahead.
Being chosen a Sylff fellow therefore automatically confers membership in the Association and eligibility to apply for the many support programs the Association offers. The secretariat is now busy developing additional programs and inviting applications. I hope everyone will become an active member of our Association, and by this I mean not just as a recipient of support but—in keeping with Sylff’s founding vision—also by offering to support others, either financially or in the area of their expertise.
I hope we can grow into a more closely knit Sylff community, sharing our knowledge and skills to build a world marked not by division but by understanding. I look forward to hearing about your research and social engagement activities through our online communication tools, as well as in person whenever you are in Tokyo, so that we can work together to make the Sylff Association a truly valuable network of socially engaged leaders.
May 5, 2018
April 26, 2018
https://www.sylff.org/support_programs/sra/
The Sylff Association is pleased to announce Sylff Research Abroad (SRA) ’s call for applications for fiscal 2018 (April 1, 2018, to March 31, 2019). The deadline for the first selection round is June 29 (for those planning research abroad after August 2) and for the second selection is January 9, 2019 (for those planning research abroad after February 6).
Click here for details of the announcement.
SRA supports current or past Sylff fellowship recipients to conduct academic research related to their doctoral dissertation in a foreign country. It provides the grant of up to US$5,000 each to successful applicants. We hope you will be able to become one of them.
We look forward to receiving your applications!
April 26, 2018
By 22363
Fernanda Herrera Lopez is a Sylff fellow currently enrolled in a PhD program at El Colegio de México (Colmex). She was in Mexico City on the day of the magnitude 7.1 earthquake that struck on September 19, 2017. She is a member of the Colmex 19S Committee, which has led relief activities after the earthquake with support from the Sylff Disaster Relief Fund. Fernanda shares her experience and learnings.
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Up until last year, September 19 was a date that most Mexicans associated with the year 1985. In the early hours of that day in 1985, a magnitude 8.1 earthquake struck Mexico City, killing thousands of people and bringing together millions more. From that day on, citizens have conducted annual earthquake drills, both for safety preparedness and to remember and honor those who lost their lives.
September 19, 2017, was no exception. At exactly 11:00 am, students, professors, and workers of El Colegio de México (Colmex) heard the seismic alert and evacuated the facilities, as did all the other students and workers in neighboring areas. We then went back to our daily lives without knowing that the next couple of days would be spent away from the classrooms, scrabbling through rubble and helping people in improvised shelters.
The earthquake reached Mexico City at 1:14 pm. Most of us were having lunch in the school cafeteria when we felt the ground shake beneath us. Surprisingly, the alert did not go off right away; we later learned that our proximity to the epicenter in Morelos—just under 120 km away—meant that the warning system could not detect the seismic movement in advance, and it was only as we were leaving the building that the alarm was activated. Once outside Colmex, we heard rumors that some buildings had collapsed, that there were fires due to gas leaks, and that people were trapped inside their homes and offices. Later that day, we found out that the rumors were true; more than 40 buildings had fallen to the ground, taking with them 225 human lives.
The help was immediate: People rushed to pharmacies and bought first aid supplies and water for the survivors. All construction retailing companies donated or sold out basic rescue equipment like shovels, carts, mallets, heavy-duty gloves, and hard hats. People who could not afford to buy medical or construction supplies donated their time and effort, helping remove rubble from rescue sites and preparing and delivering warm meals to volunteers and rescuers. Citizens fought day and night to rescue trapped people and animals. If someone got tired, there was always another volunteer willing to step in. If someone lost hope, there were words of encouragement.
International aid was also prompt, and Mexico welcomed rescuers from El Salvador, Israel, Japan, Panama, Spain, and the United States. Even though we knew that the chances of finding survivors grew slimmer with each passing day, we all kept despair at a distance and focused on assisting the rescue teams as much as we could. Finding people who did not survive discouraged all, but we soon learned from the Japanese that death was also to be met with respect, and we joined them whenever they bowed to the victims.
Two days after the earthquake, we received a very kind email from the Sylff Association secretariat asking if we were all right. We told them that the Colmex community had not been tragically affected and that we were working to help those who were less fortunate than us; in fact, students, professors, and staff had managed to collect and deliver more than 10 tons of supplies and daily necessities to communities in Mexico City and other neighboring states. The Sylff Association then offered to start a fund-raising campaign among its members to help with the relief activities. We were happy to hear this and, subsequently, to receive very generous donations from the Sylff Association, namely, the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research, the Jadavpur University Sylff Association, and Belgrade University Sylff fellow Marina Stetic. This reinforced our notion that the Sylff network has strong ties based on solidarity and brotherhood and that the interaction among its members goes beyond the mere generation of knowledge and the transmission of ideas.
Some of the members of the 19S Committee.
The Relief Fund meant that we could widen our scope of help, but at the same time, it brought with it a greater responsibility to choose and direct the resources. Bearing this in mind, Colmex created the 19S Committee, composed of two full-time professors, Dr. Sandra Kuntz and Dr. Satomi Miura; Laura Valverde, director for Student Affairs; Colmex treasurer Hugo Ortega; Dr. Laura Flamand, vice president of Academic Affairs; and two Sylff members, Erick Serna and myself. Together, we agreed that we would target three underprivileged communities in Mexico City, Morelos, and Oaxaca. This unanimous decision was reached after reviewing several proposals and holding meetings with project representatives and locals. One of our main concerns was that the initially abundant help was slowly running out, yet the survivors had not even managed to make a partial recovery.
Our choice of relief items to purchase was based on the following reasoning: People needed medicine, because the precarious conditions in which they live promote gastrointestinal and eye diseases. Survivors also required winter items like jackets, warm sleeping bags, and tents to deal with the cold, since many of them still lived in temporary shelters.
Erick Serna, a 2016 Sylff fellow at El Colegio de México, traveled alongside five Colmex students and Professor Satomi Miura to San Mateo del Mar, Oaxaca, on February 10, 2018. The group delivered 850 food packages, 800 medicine kits, 44 tents, 46 sleeping bags, and 35 winter jackets for men, women, and children. The following is his account.
“We traveled all Friday night and Saturday morning. The truck with the relief items arrived first. By the time we got there, the women of the community—all of them from indigenous groups—had unloaded most of the load. The language they spoke was Huave. Most of the women were accompanied by their children, some of whom were babies. CAMI, a center created by local women organized the delivery of the items. While traveling across San Mateo, we noticed the context of poverty in which the community lives. The town relies on fishing, yet such economic activity is not enough to fulfill the daily needs of its inhabitants.
Erick Serna in Huejotongo.
“After visiting San Mateo del Mar, Huejotongo, and San Gregorio, I had many contradictory feelings. I felt grateful to the Sylff Association for allowing me to continue doing social labor. But I learned that sometimes it is very difficult to have a meaningful impact given the social and cultural context in which some communities live. Nevertheless, I found that a little help is better than none, and I hope that we can find more reasons to continue helping our brothers.”
I (Fernanda Herrera Lopez), a 2016 fellow at El Colegio de México, accompanied two Colmex students and three staff members to San Gregorio, Mexico City, on February 5, 2018. We delivered 120 food packages and 32 winter jackets for men, women, and children.
Relief activity in San Gregorio.
We arrived in San Gregorio early in the afternoon. Two locals guided us through narrow unpaved streets—so narrow, in fact, that we had to leave the vans behind and carry the food packages ourselves. The first community we visited had already begun the demolition of destroyed houses. We delivered daily necessities to villagers and then headed to other communities that were more difficult to reach.
My guide was a civil defense expert. He pointed to a sign painted on the front window of a house and explained its meaning to me: the “6” to the left indicated the number of people who used to live in the house, the “0” on top was the number of people who died on September 19, the “0” on the bottom was the number of animals that lived there, and the “D” to the right indicated that the house was to be demolished. Once I learned this information, I could not help but feel a great sadness whenever we saw a number different than “0” marked on the upper part of a sign.
Since most of the houses in the area were deemed unsuitable for living, the local authorities had asked their inhabitants to relocate elsewhere, but some people continued living there. They explained that they had no money to pay rent elsewhere and that all they ever possessed was right there, even if it had been reduced to rubble. Families appeared to be in greater need than they were in September, because local businesses and factories had closed down due to the earthquake. This meant that the survivors had an extra adversity to face: unemployment. In spite all of this, people continue to have high hopes for the future. I think that, by easing their burdens in the short term, the aid that the Sylff Association kindly provided will allow them to recover.
The lessons we have taken from the earthquake and the delivery of the relief items go well beyond anything we could have learned in the classrooms. In particular, we found that, despite Colmex’s full commitment to improving the social, economic, and environmental conditions of Mexico through theoretical and applied research, there is still much to learn from people whose voices we had not heard before. We are indebted to the Sylff Association for providing invaluable help to the survivors of the earthquake and for bringing us closer to them. We hope that joint efforts like these will have lasting impacts on all the agents involved.
April 20, 2018
https://www.sylff.org/support_programs/sra/
The Sylff Association secretariat is pleased to announce the 13 recipients of SRA awards in the second selection round for fiscal 2017. We received a large number of applications from fellows all over the world. There was great variety in the proposed fields and themes of research. Many were highly persuasive which made the selection process very competitive. All applications were carefully screened for eligibility, the feasibility of the proposal, and the relevance of the proposed research to the applicant’s academic pursuits. Congratulations to the winning applicants! We send them our best wishes and hope that the findings of their research abroad will further enrich and enhance their dissertations. The 13 awardees are as follows:
*Awardees are listed in alphabetical order.
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Name |
Sylff Institution |
SRA Host Institution (Country) |
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Fieldwork (Germany, Ireland, Portugal, and Sweden) |
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Peking University (China) |
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University of Warwick (UK) |
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University of Granada (Spain) |
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Freie Universitat Berlin, ZI Lateinamerika-Institut (Germany) |
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UC Berkeley’s Institute of Urban & Regional Development (USA) |
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International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam (Netherlands) |
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Birkbeck, University of London (UK) |
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Terrewode (Uganda) |
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Centre de recherches sur les liens sociaux (France) |
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The State Archives in Dubrovnik (Croatia) |
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San Francisco State University (USA) |
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Le Centre d’etudes diocesain “Les Glycines” (Algeria) |
