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[Report] Leadership and Character Building for Youth in Rwanda

January 30, 2017
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Chika Ezeanya-Esiobu, who received a Sylff fellowship at Howard University in 2010, organized an SLI workshop on youth leadership empowerment in May 2016. Attending the workshop in Kigali, Rwanda, as observers from the Tokyo Foundation were Mari Suzuki, director for leadership development, and two program officers: Keita Sugai and Aya Oyamada.

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Ms. Chika Ezeanya, the organizer.

Twenty years after the genocide in which as many as 1 million people are thought to have lost their lives, Rwanda today is making great strides in its social and economic development. What is necessary for further development?

The answer, for Sylff fellow Chika Ezeanya, was clear: leadership. Each and every citizen needs to be aware of the obligation to make a positive contribution to society through their actions. To promote such awareness among university students, she organized a workshop on youth leadership empowerment as a Sylff Leadership Initiatives (SLI) project on May 25-26, 2016, at the University of Rwanda’s College of Business and Economics in Kigali, Rwanda.

Ezeanya was one of three speakers at the event, titled “Workshop on Character Building and Preparing Young Rwandans for Leadership towards Societal Advancement.” Over the two-day workshop, discussions were held on the importance of respect for social norms, setting of goals, and the development of self-motivated leadership to effectively manage one’s strengths and weaknesses. Discussions on how individuals can contribute to the resolution of social issues focused on the imaginative power needed to pinpoint and address key problems.

Mari Suzuki, director for leadership development.

Mari Suzuki, director for leadership development.

During the Q&A session near the end of the workshop, one female student who had lost her parents during the genocide asked about reconciliation: “I myself am working to forgive. But how can we communicate these experiences to the next generation and carry on with the process of reconciliation?”

In response, Salomon Nshimiyimana, who teaches at the university as executive assistant, said that no clear-cut answers exist. But just as the antagonism between ethnic groups deepened over many years, “Reconciliation, too, is a process that will take time,” he said.

Dealing directly with difficult issues that people tend to avoid is an important aspect of leadership, and individuals who can encourage people to speak their minds and bring about meaningful dialogue are likely to play a key role in demonstrating true leadership and moving society forward.

Rwandan students after the workshop.

Rwandan students after the workshop.

Julius Tumwesigye, one of the students attending the workshop, said, “It was a great contribution to Rwanda’s future, as it provided us with various leadership skills and instilled in us the importance of self-leadership.” Other students said the workshop had inspired them to spread the message of personal and social responsibility throughout the university. Such reactions from the country’s future leaders were one of the positive results of the workshop.

The organizers are to be congratulated for the success of this very important workshop. The Tokyo Foundation hopes that Dr. Ezeanya, through her work on solving the social problems she encounters in her daily life, will become one of the leaders who will help to build a brighter future for Africa.

 

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UNSW Celebrates Sylff’s 25th Anniversary

January 26, 2017

Asha Gul, a 2016 Sylff fellow at the UNSW Australia Business School.

Asha Gul, a 2016 Sylff fellow at the UNSW Australia Business School.

On November 2, 2016, UNSW Australia Business School celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Sylff program at the university.

UNSW became the thirtieth member of the Sylff community when an endowment was established at the Graduate School of Management in 1991, with the first Sylff fellows being selected in 1992. The school later became the Australian School of Business and is now called the UNSW Business School. To date, Sylff fellowships have supported 200 topnotch graduate students attending this world-renowned business school. At the celebration event, about 25 fellows and school representatives gathered to share memories with old friends and to meet new Sylff acquaintances.

The occasion was an opportunity to bring fellows from different generations together and strengthen their Sylff identity.

Professor Elizabeth Carson reads a letter from Mr. Sasakawa.

Professor Elizabeth Carson reads a letter from Mr. Sasakawa.

Four current fellows gave short presentations on their research and social engagement activities, such as those involving the teaching of business skills and the empowerment of women in local neighborhoods, demonstrating that Sylff fellows not only excel academically but also are change agents committed to the betterment of the community.

A fellow in the 1990s shared her experiences and noted that she still maintains the network that she developed with various Sylff institutions. She encouraged other fellows to take advantage of their membership in the global Sylff community.

Sylff’s distinctive features were emphasized in a congratulations letter from Mr. Yohei Sasakawa, chairman of the Nippon Foundation, which was delivered at the anniversary event by Professor and Acting Associate Dean of Research Elizabeth Carson. His message highlighted Sylff’s mission of developing socially engaged leaders and the access fellows gain to a global network of other fellows attending many of the world’s best universities.

Group photo with Sylff fellows.

Group photo with Sylff fellows.

The success of the program can be credited in large part to the hard work of Sylff steering committee members at the university. In her remarks at the gathering, Tokyo Foundation Director for Leadership Development Yoko Kaburagi expressed her sincere gratitude to the SSC members for their dedication to the administration of the program over the past 25 years.

The UNSW steering committee and the Tokyo Foundation will continue to work closely together in further enriching the Sylff experience, both during the fellowship period and throughout the fellows’ careers.

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Sylff News 2016

December 22, 2016

Happy New Year from Mr. Sasakawa and the Sylff Staff!

(Back row, from left) Yumi Arai, Tomoko Yamada, Keita Sugai, Yoko Kaburagi (Director), Takashi Suzuki
(Seated) Mari Suzuki (Director), Mana Sakamoto, Yohei Sasakawa (Chairman of the Nippon Foundation), Aya Oyamada, Sanae Oda (Executive Director).

The Sylff program will mark its 30th anniversary in 2017, when we will launch a number of new Sylff support programs to better meet fellows’ expectations and launch a Sylff Association to make sure we all stay connected.

SYLFF NEWS 2016

Hoshi, back row center, Voris to his left, and members of the Sylff team.

Hoshi, back row center, Voris to his left, and members of the Sylff team.

New Chair of the Board

In June, Takeo Hoshi, the Henri H. and Tomoye Takahashi Senior Fellow in Japanese Studies at Stanford University, joined the Tokyo Foundation as Chair of the Board. Before moving to Stanford in 2012, he taught at UC San Diego for over 20 years, where he served as chair of the Sylff Steering Committee. He congratulated Philip Voris on being selected a Sylff fellow at UC San Diego this year when the latter visited the Foundation in December.

Meeting of Chinese Sylff Administrators

On December 8 and 9, Sylff administrators at 10 Chinese universities (Fudan, Jilin, Lanzhou, Nanjing, Peking, Chongqing, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Yunnan, and Sun Yat-sen) gathered at Peking University to discuss plans for events to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Sylff program at 10 Chinese institutions in 2017 and to review Sylff program operations and endowment management.

Sylff program administrators at 10 Chinese universities and members of the Tokyo Foundation.

Sylff program administrators at 10 Chinese universities and members of the Tokyo Foundation.

UNSW Australia Celebrates 25th Sylff Anniversary

On November 2, UNSW Australia Business School in Sydney celebrated 25 years of Sylff with the participation of socially engaged fellows whom the School has supported over the years.

New Scheme

We are pleased to announce that 10 institutions have successfully signed agreements to join the new financial scheme as of December 2016. In 2016, fellowships were awarded to 38 graduate students from six institutions under the new scheme: Coimbra, Institute of Political Education “Pedro Arrupe,” Leipzig, Deusto, Comenius, and Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris. In 2017, these institutions will be joined by National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Ruhr University Bochum, University of Chile, and University of Belgrade.

SYLFF SUPPORT PROGRAMS

Five fellows received Sylff Leadership Initiatives awards in 2016, and 28 received Sylff Research Abroad grants. We look forward to receiving many more applications in 2017. We are currently conducting a survey on new support programs and are eager to receive comments from as many fellows as possible. More information about the survey is available at Survey on New Support Programs.

SYLFF@TOKYO

We welcomed many current and graduated fellows as well as Sylff administrators to the Tokyo Foundation in 2016.

December 20
UC San Diego Fellow Applying Cross-Cultural Experience in Pursuing International Affairs Degree

September 13
Sylff Scholars Discuss Their Social Initiatives, Meet with Mr. Sasakawa

June 16
Juilliard Fellow Hopes to Promote Multicultural Communication

June 6
Deepening Collaborative Ties with Portland State University

February 15
Jagiellonian University’s Prestigious Leadership Program

SYLFF WORLDWIDE

We’re happy to share news of notable achievements by Sylff fellows around the world:

July 20
Howard Research Week Highlights Partnership with Sylff Program

July 14
Jadavpur Fellows Visit Hansen’s Disease Patients in Kolkata

January 18
Dylan Corlay Wins Top Prize at Jorma Panula Conducting Competition