Attending the Sylff meeting at Howard University were (front row, left to right) Mari Suzuki, Phiwokuhle Mnyandu, Yohei Sasakawa, Vanessa Oyugi, Markus Weise, (back row, left to right) Alhaji Conteh, Benjamin Aciek Machar, and Pedro L. Cortes-Ruiz.

Howard University is a culturally diverse, research intensive, and historically African-American private university providing educational opportunities of exceptional quality for its students. Located in Washington, DC, the university is committed to producing leaders for the United States and the global community from among its mostly African-American and African-born international students.

On April 11–15, the university hosted Research Week 2016 as part of its efforts to foster the research mission and celebrate its research enterprise. The Sylff Session during the week was held on April 13, the aim of which was to introduce the Sylff program and fellows to the wider university community. Six current Sylff fellows talked about their research activities, the progress they have made thus far, and their experiences as fellows. They also took questions from the floor.

The audience included students, members of the Sylff advisory committee and steering committee, the associate provost for research and graduate studies, and representatives of the Nippon Foundation and Tokyo Foundation. Among those in attendance was Nippon Foundation Chairman Yohei Sasakawa, who is also the WHO Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination. During his visit to Washington, he also spoke at a conference—co-hosted by the World Bank and the World Health Organization—aimed at moving mental health to the mainstream of the global development agenda.

Prior to the Sylff Session, Mr. Sasakawa met with members of the Sylff steering committee and Sylff fellows to discuss the Sylff mission and underlying values of the program (see photo). He shared his involvement with Africa by introducing the activities of the Sasakawa Africa Association, an international agricultural development NGO seeking to improve the productivity and profitability of smallholder farms in Africa.

Fellows (from left) Soumya Bhowmick, Sudeshna Dutta, Purbasha Auddy, Mayuri Banerjee, Kheya Samaddar and Reep Pandi Lepcha with the hospital’s staff (in white).

The Jadavpur University Sylff Association (JU-Sylff Association) has been actively engaged in working for the community since it was formed in 2005. On February 23, 2016, six JU Sylff fellows visited the Premananda Memorial Leprosy Hospital in Kolkata, India. The hospital is run by the Leprosy Mission, an international nongovernmental organization that works with individuals and communities affected by Hansen’s disease. The visit to the hospital is made annually by the JU-Sylff Association, inspired by the activities of Yohei Sasakawa, chairman of the Nippon Foundation. Kolkata in western India, where Jadavpur University is located, has a long history of the disease, and stigmas still remain.

The fellows visited the hospital in their local community, which now houses 20 patients, and deepened their understanding of this now curable disease. The visit began with a showing of a film titled Bajrangi Bhaijaan about a Pakistani Muslim girl who, unable to either speak or hear, becomes lost in India and meets an Indian Hindu man with whom she develops a warm friendship. The patients, who often feel isolated and excluded from society, were moved by the strong bond spanning differences in language, religion, and country between the girl and the man.

Communicating with patients.

During their visit, the fellows—doctoral candidates Reep Pandi Lepcha, Sudeshna Dutta, and Purbasha Auddy and MA students Soumya Bhowmick, Mayuri Banerjee, and Kheya Samaddar—painted a wall of the hospital ward with trees, birds, flowers, and butterflies in bright colors, helping to lift the mood of the patients and staff members. They also presented board games to be used by the patients, along with handmade cards with the patients’ names on them. These gestures, demonstrating an understanding of the hospital’s work, were deeply appreciated by the staff.

Through this visit, the fellows deepened their insights into the patients’ suffering, loneliness, and isolation due to discrimination and prejudice. They vowed to continue this initiative and have already started planning their next visit. The most recent visit was made possible by financial and moral support from Sylff Program Director and Professor of Economics Joyashree Roy and former Sylff fellows.

Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Sona Andrews, Vice Provost for International Affairs and Dean of Graduate Studies Margaret Everett, and other faculty members of Portland State University paid a courtesy call on the Tokyo Foundation on March 8, 2016.

The delegation from Portland State University—from far right, Margaret Everett, Sona Andrews, Stephen Percy, and Masami Nishishiba—meet with members of the Tokyo Foundation.

Professor Everett is the chairperson of the Sylff steering committee at PSU, which shares its endowment with the University of Oregon and Oregon State University. For more than a decade, the PSU has also been hosting an annual weeklong training program in citizen-based urban development as part of the Tokyo Foundation’s “Weekend School” for Municipal Officers—a leadership development program for mid-career municipal officers in Japan.

Other visitors from PSU included Professor Stephen Percy, dean of the College of Urban and Public Affairs, and Professor Masami Nishishiba, associate professor of public administration and associate director of the Center for Public Service in the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government. Professor Nishishiba is the coordinator of the municipal officers program in Portland and has made an invaluable contribution to enriching the experience of the Japanese participants.

Members of the PSU met with Tokyo Foundation President Masahiro Akiyama, Executive Directors Sanae Oda and Akiko Imai, Director for Public Communications Kaoru Matsushita, and three program officers for leadership development: Tomoko Yamada, Akiko Inagaki, and Aya Oyamada.

The visitors brought news of the recently established School of Public Health at PSU, highlighting the growing importance of public health issues both globally and in the local community. Sharing updates on a variety of recent initiatives, members of PSU and the Foundation pledged to deepen their collaboration in the future.