The Sylff Association Secretariat is pleased to announce two recent recipients of a Sylff Leadership Initiatives (SLI) award. SLI supports Sylff fellows’ initiatives to change society for the better with awards of up to US$10,000.

The two winners, chosen from among many applicants, are Sennane Gatakaa Riungu, a visa processing officer for the Australian High Commission in Nairobi, Kenya, and Shangrila Joshi, a faculty member at the Evergreen State College in Washington, United States.

Riungu’s project seeks to provide capacity building and agribusiness training for community members in Maara constituency, Kenya—her home community—to equip them with the tools and information needed to develop agricultural business enterprises. Aside from her professional work at the Commission, she has been engaged in empowering her home community with others for over 10 years by utilizing their vast networks outside the community.

Transplanting tomato seedlings in Kenya.

In 2013, she implemented her first SLI project aimed at providing basic professional development skills for community youths (see https://www.sylff.org/news_voices/13125/). Her second SLI project is a scaled-out version of the initiative that focuses more on providing practical knowledge and skills so that the community can become financially self-supporting.

Joshi will hold workshops and a forum in Nepal, her home country, in August. She will serve as a facilitator to give forest users a better understanding of climate mitigation mechanisms such as REDD+ and lead discussions on issues of fairness, equity, and justice in the implementation of REDD+.

Local women of a forest community in Nepal.

She plans to document the views and ideas of the participants so that such mechanisms will be implemented in socially just and equitable ways. She was inspired to organize the project through multiple research field visits to Nepal, which aroused a passion for her to make a real-world impact by utilizing her professional knowledge as a researcher of climate justice and climate policy.

The Sylff Association Secretariat is excited about helping fellows put their enthusiasm and ideas into action for the betterment of their home communities. Congratulations to both recipients on winning the award. The two projects will be carried out over the coming months, and reports will be posted on this website.

We are looking forward to supporting many more social initiatives that can lead to positive change in society.

Women, Mobility and Incarceration by Jadavpur fellow Rimple Mehta has become a widely discussed book in the Indian media. Published by Routledge, it is an account of Bangladeshi women who have been imprisoned in India for entering the country illegally and sheds light on the plight of female prisoners, who are often “invisibilised and incarcerated.”

Firstpost

https://www.firstpost.com/india/invisibilised-and-incarcerated-once-migrants-in-search-for-better-futures-bangladeshi-women-now-languish-in-jail-6879031.html

The Indian Express

https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/books/rimple-mehta-bangladesh-migrants-women-sexuality-the-invisible-people-nrc-5689240/?fbclid=IwAR3eHD73BNwzsTob9iUj-zJcJ5KtgTtLrsekvbkyZo8MulTuJLEGeSXTm0o

Dr. Mehta, who received a Sylff fellowship from Jadavpur University, is now an assistant professor at the Tata Institute of Social Science, India. While at Jadavpur, she was granted a Sylff Research Abroad award to conduct research in Hungary. She also recently organized a Sylff Leadership Initiatives workshop to improve conditions faced by women prisoners in India.

A Workshop organized by Rimple Mehta (right) with a Sylff Leadership Initiatives grant. Practitioners, scholars, and activists were invited to discuss the plight of women prisoners in India.

The Sylff Association secretariat is happy that Mehta has made use of Sylff support programs to advance her career, and that her decade-long work is now being broadly recognized by society.

Matías Ariel Chiappe Ippolito dropped by the Sylff Association secretariat in Tokyo on Tuesday, June 25, 2019. Chiappe received a Sylff fellowship in 2013–15 while attending El Colegio de México.

Chiappe, standing center, with members of the Sylff Association secretariat.

He is currently pursuing a PhD in international culture and communication studies at Waseda University in Tokyo. He also holds a teaching assistant position at Waseda’s Global Japanese Literary and Cultural Studies program, where he leads classes in academic writing and Japanese literature.

Originally from Argentina, Chiappe began studying Japanese in his home country and moved to El Colegio de México, where he received a master’s in Japanese studies. In his PhD dissertation, he is analyzing Japanese literary works in which Latin America is depicted or discussed. One Japanese novelist he is studying is Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe. Oe was invited to teach at El Colegio de México in 1976 and 1977.

Chiappe presents a paper during the Asian Studies Conference in June 2019.

Chiappe has a deep understanding of Japanese culture and literature and has translated several books from Japanese into English and Spanish. On June 29 and 30, 2019, he participated in the Asian Studies Conference at Saitama University, northwest of Tokyo, and presented a paper titled, “Utopian Images of Latin America in Japanese Literature: Catholic Redemptions in Kenzaburo Oe’s Post-Mexican Fiction.”

We hope he will make an important contribution to deeper ties and fuller understanding between Japan and Latin America.

Erika Mitsui as a violinist.

Erika Mitsui, a Sylff fellowship recipient in 2015 while attending the Juilliard School as a violinist, visited the Sylff Association secretariat in Tokyo on Tuesday, June 18, 2019.

After graduating from Juilliard, Mitsui performed at various venues, ranging from concert halls to public places of all kinds. One such venue was an inpatient ward of the Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City. This turned out to be a life-changing and inspiring experience, as she realized that music can help heal even the most seriously ill patients.

Seeing the reactions of the patients who were helped emotionally, Mitsui made up her mind to transition to a career in medicine, and she will start her studies in the MD program at the Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons, Columbia University, this coming August.

She feels that becoming a medical doctor will allow her to integrate her background in East Asian studies at Columbia (undergraduate) and music at Juilliard (master’s) with her desire to make a direct impact on patient’s lives and on the community. In addition to practicing clinical medicine, she hopes to pursue a career in research and health policy.  

Mitsui, standing second from left, during her visit to the Sylff Association secretariat.

She is currently working on projects to perform music in hospitals in New York and in Japan. We ｗish her much success in whatever field she chooses to pursue.

Christiane Wüllner and Jörn Benzinger, standing center, with members of the Sylff Association secretariat.

On May 20, 2019, Christiane Wüllner and Jörn Benzinger of Ruhr-University Bochum (RUB) visited the Sylff Association secretariat in Tokyo. Wüllner is currently the managing director of the RUB Research School and a key member of the RUB Sylff Steering Committee. Benzinger is the coordinator of international affairs. The two, on their first visit to Japan, were attending university fairs in Tokyo and Osaka to invite prospective students to apply to RUB.

It was also an opportunity to discuss the Sylff new scheme at RUB in 2017. RUB has launched a uniquely structured “Sylff College” with a mission to facilitate multidisciplinary research. The first  group of Sylff fellows share an academic theme, “forced migration,” enabling each to develop his or her research while collaborating in various ways, such as organizing international academic conferences. Other students and professors have become interested in this theme, and the group has subsequently grown.

We hope that “Sylff College” evolves in creative and positive ways in the years ahead.

Paulina Berrios, a Sylff fellowship recipient in 2003–04 while attending the University of Chile, visited the Sylff Association secretariat in Tokyo on Thursday, March 7, 2019. She is currently an administrator in the Institutional Research Office of the University of Chile in Santiago.

Berrios, third from left, during her visit to the Sylff Association secretariat.

Visiting Japan for the fourth time, Berrios attended an international conference on academic teaching and research in the knowledge society, hosted by the Research Institute for Higher Education, Hiroshima University, on March 4–5, 2019. At the conference, Berrios made a presentation on the “Academic Profession in Chile: The Fieldwork Experience and Some Preliminary Findings.”

Berrios’s core academic interest has been the working conditions of the teaching staff at Chile universities. Now that she has become an administrator at the University of Chile, she is able to examine the issue from the viewpoint of both a researcher and a practitioner, adding depth and balance to her insights.

Berrios, presenting on her Sylff Research Abroad experience at 2014 Sylff Administrators Meeting in Tokyo.

Berrios has continued to engage with the Sylff community during the course of her career. She has conducted research abroad with an SRA grant, has served on the Sylff Fellows Council, and was invited to make a presentation at the Sylff Administrators Meeting in 2014. We hope to continue working closely with her and will be supporting any initiatives on strengthening networking among University of Chile Sylff fellows.

https://www.sylff.org/support_programs/sra/

The Sylff Association is pleased to announce Sylff Research Abroad (SRA) ’s call for applications for fiscal 2019 (April 1, 2019, to March 31, 2020). The deadline for the first selection round is June 28 (for those planning research abroad after August 1) and for the second selection is January 8, 2020 (for those planning research abroad after February 5).

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!

https://www.sylff.org/support_programs/sra/

The Sylff Association secretariat is pleased to announce the nine recipients of SRA awards in the second selection round for fiscal 2018. In this round, we again received outstanding applications for research in various specialized fields from fellows all over the world.

We reviewed all applications carefully from the perspectives of eligibility, the feasibility of the proposals, and the relevance of the proposed research to the applicants’ academic pursuits. The awardees in this round were at different stages of their research, some taking advantage of SRA to collect fundamental data for their doctoral dissertation, with others using the opportunity to verify their findings and receive further advice from overseas experts.

Congratulations to all the awardees! We send them our best wishes and hope their research abroad will be fruitful and pave the way for the next stage of academic advancement. The nine awardees are as follows:

* Listed in alphabetical order.

Officials from the Energy Department of the Government of Bihar, Bihar State Power Holding Company Limited (BSPHCL), and other visitors from India dropped by the office of the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research (Sylff Association secretariat) on January 15, 2019. The delegation was making the visit as part of a 10-day international study tour of Japan.

The study tour to Japan was conceptualized and designed by Professor Lakshmi B., director, Centre for Human Resources Development and Centre for Poverty Studies and Rural Development, Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), Hyderabad, India. The purpose of the study tour was to help officials gain an understanding of the power distribution, transmission, and renewable energy scenario of Japan, as well as of innovations in the country’s energy sector.

The delegation was led by Sreerupa Sengupta, a Sylff fellow at Jadavpur University, in 2008–10.

Sengupta is currently an assistant professor at the Centre for Human Resources Development at ASCI, Hyderabad. The Administrative Staff College of India is an institution of national excellence and has pioneered post-experience management education in India. ASCI was set up jointly by the Government of India and industry as an autonomous, self-supporting, public-interest institution to serve as a think tank providing policy recommendations and to develop management professionals for both government and business enterprises.

The delegation consisted of 14 participants, including Binoda Nand Jha, joint secretary of the Energy Department in the Government of Bihar; N.K.P Sinha, technical advisor, BSPHCL, and Pradip Maji, general manager for South Bihar Power Distribution Company Limited. They met with Hikaru Hiranuma, a research fellow at the Foundation and an expert on energy issues, who discussed the state of renewable energy in Japan. The visitors expressed great interest in the differences between India and Japan regarding energy policy and the energy situation, including the fact that electric power supply in Japan was provided by 10 separate regional companies.

The Sylff Association secretariat is always happy to welcome Sylff fellows and to connect them with the Foundation’s policy experts.

Sengupta (tenth from left), Hiranuma (holding blue bag), members of the Indian delegation, and staff of the Sylff Association secretariat.

Members of the Sylff Association secretariat were saddened to learn that Frances Seeds, one of the Sylff program’s very first fellows, passed away in November 2018. She received a fellowship in 1987 while attending the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and worked for many years as one of the top interpreters in Japan.

After graduating from Tufts University’s Fletcher School, where she received a master’s degree in international relations, Seeds became a Japanese-English conference interpreter, working at many important events in both the private and public sectors, including international conferences, negotiations, and summit meetings. As a fully bilingual speaker of English and Japanese, she was frequently praised for her ability to fully convey the meaning of remarks in both languages.

Her skills were in evidence very recently, when she provided interpretation at the farewell lunch party for the Sylff Leaders Workshop in September 2018. Her poise and masterful rendering of comments by Nippon Foundation President Takeju Ogata and other speakers made a deep impression on all participants.

We are all pained by the sudden news of her passing and feel a deep sense of loss. May her soul rest in peace.

Frances Seeds (far left) interprets for Takeju Ogata, president of the Nippon Foundation (standing with microphone), at the farewell lunch party for participants of the Sylff Leaders Workshop in September 2018.