Lindsey Lim

Lindsey Lim, a recipient of a Sylff fellowship at Columbia University in 2014, revisited the Tokyo Foundation on June 4, 2015, to give a presentation on the findings of an ongoing social action project in Philippines that promotes financial inclusion, called the Kasambahay Savings Project. This was a follow-up on a presentation she gave at the Foundation in January. Lim is a dual degree student at Columbia University and the University of Tokyo.

She initiated and currently directs the project in cooperation with BPI, which targets full-time domestic workers (kasambahay in Filipino) who live in the homes of their employers. The project helps these workers to open saving accounts—which less than a third of the adult population have in the Philippines—and receive a broader range of financial services.

She made some intriguing discoveries regarding the saving behavior of project participants by analyzing the transactions in 160 accounts over the last six months. Lim found that kasambahay were able to save money despite their low income and that there was no remarkable correlation between people’s saving behavior and their age or education. She also found that having a bank account enables them to buy health insurance.

Lim with her classmates and Mari Suzuki, left, director for leadership development at the Tokyo Foundation

Many kasambahay have expressed their gratitude to Lim for launching this project, which promotes financial literacy among kasambahay and enables them to send money safely back to their families in the countryside.

Lim had an opportunity to present a summary of her project and its findings before representatives of 16 Philippines commercial banks. Many banks were made aware of the needs of the kasambahay, who are valuable members of society, and two commercial banks—RCBC and the Philippine Veteran’s Bank—expressed an interest in enabling domestic workers to open accounts at their branches. The next phase of the Kasambahay Savings Project will be implemented with the help of an SLI award and in cooperation with the two commercial banks. In the future, she also hopes to develop a new service that entitles kasambahay to buy insurance in conjunction with their savings account.

The Tokyo Foundation wishes her great success in her future pursuits.

Hamamoto, right, with a wheelchair dancer

Marisa Hamamoto, a 2007 Sylff fellowship recipient at Keio University, has launched Infinite Flow, America’s first professional wheelchair ballroom dance company. It is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that seeks to share the power of dance and performance with physically challenged individuals.

Hamamoto has been passionate about ballet and contemporary dance since childhood, prompting her to study the biomechanics of dancing as well as dance educational policy for her master’s degree at Keio. While a student, however, she was diagnosed with spinal cord infarction, a severe neurological disease that left her paralyzed from the neck down. Her passion for dance, though, gave her the strength and energy to combat and entirely recover from her illness.

Today, she is a professional ballroom dancer and teaches dance full-time. Her personal experience with overcoming a debilitating disease provided the motivation for the establishment of Infinite Flow as a way of sharing her passion and love for dancing with those with physically disabilities.

Click on the link below to read an interview with Hamamoto that was published in Rafu Shimpo, the largest English-Japanese bilingual newspaper in the United States.
http://www.rafu.com/2015/05/the-power-of-dance/.