The Sylff program will mark its 30th anniversary in 2017, and on this occasion, the Tokyo Foundation plans to launch a number of new Sylff support programs to better fulfill fellows’ needs and expectations, especially those of graduated fellows. We hope to enhance the utility of the program for fellows around the world who are emerging as leaders in tackling global and local issues in their respective fields. This is in keeping with Sylff’s original goal of providing continuing, lifelong support for fellows.

We are eager to learn what you think of our ideas about new support initiatives. Please support this initiatives by sending us your response to the survey. More information is available at the following link : Survey on New Support Programs

2016-1 Awardees

The Tokyo Foundation is pleased to announce the 12 recipients of SRA awards in the first screening round for fiscal 2016. We received a large number of applications from fellows, including many who are pursuing a doctoral degree at non-Sylff institutions. We are glad that they have chosen to reaffirm their ties with the Sylff community, and it is our pleasure to support their research abroad. Congratulations to all the winning applicants! We send you our best wishes and hope that opportunity to study abroad will further enrich and enhance your dissertation. The names of the awardees and their home and the host institutions can be viewed here.

The Tokyo Foundation had the privilege of welcoming two Sylff fellows who are exercising great leadership in their respective areas of expertise to the office on July 21, 2016.

David D. Sussman, who received a Sylff fellowship in 2003 while studying for a master of arts in law and diplomacy (international relations) at the Fletcher School, Tufts University, gave an insightful presentation on his research into “Society and Personal Responsibility: Migration in an Interconnected World.”

He continued to pursue doctoral research at Fletcher and is now a lecturer at Tufts as well as working as a consultant at the Work Bank on the topic of refugee integration. His research focuses on how immigration affects people, actions, and policies in a globalized world. In his presentation, he talked about immigration from three different angles: refugee resettlement, relevance to US politics, and natural resource conflicts. He is currently conducting research on the social implications of natural resource use in Japan and the United States.

The other visitor was Bruno Maneno Kaimwa, who received a two-year Sylff fellowship in 2006–07 at the University of Deusto in Spain. After completing his doctoral program in international and intercultural studies at Deusto, he has devoted his energies to African regional development as a professor of public services at the Institute National du Batiment et Travaux Publics in his native Democratic Republic of the Congo and as a co-founder of a nonprofit organization.

He was in Japan to present a paper at the 31st International Psychology Congress on the theme of “The Dynamics of Local Diversities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.” The visit to Japan has a very special meaning, Kaimwa said, “Because this is the tenth anniversary of my affiliation with the Sylff community.”

From left to right, David D. Sussman, Yohei Sasakawa and Bruno Maneno Kaimwa

The visitors also had an opportunity to meet with Chairman Yohei Sasakawa of the Nippon Foundation. The fellows spoke about their research and career and their interests in contributing to society. Mr. Sasakawa emphasized the importance of each fellow in making a positive impact on society and in establishing synergistic networks within the Sylff community.

We are very impressed with the valuable work being performed by both fellows and are pleased that they had an opportunity to meet with Mr. Sasakawa. The Tokyo Foundation is undertaking a number of initiatives to further enrich the Sylff program and to bring the community closer together.

Voices 2016

The Tokyo Foundation is pleased to announce that the 2016 edition of Voices from the Community is now available as a PDF file and in print format. Featuring a new cover design, the booklet contains 20 articles uploaded on the Sylff website over the past 18 months.

Voices 2016 contains a section of articles related to SLI and SRA. More than three years has passed since the Sylff Leadership Initiatives (SLI) program was relaunched in 2013 to support fellows’ social engagement activities. Two articles in this section were written by fellows directly involved in the SLI projects, and three more are reports by program officers. Issues covered range from the refugee crisis in Europe and school bullying to opportunity gaps in education. The articles in the SRA section showcase the diversity of research undertaken abroad, including environmental policy, history, and economic development.

Other articles from across the Sylff community include one on climate changes in India written by a Sylff steering committee member and another on youth leadership in Thailand. The Tokyo Foundation is delighted to have received many contributions from around the world, and we look forward to receiving many more submissions. There are also two pages of photos featuring the many outstanding fellows whom members of the Tokyo Foundation had the pleasure of meeting in 2015.

The booklet can be downloaded as a PDF file here.

We Want to Hear Your “Voice”

We are always eager to receive your contributions to the Sylff site. Reports of your academic or social action achievements should be submitted to the Tokyo Foundation at leadership [a] tkfd.or.jp (replace [a] with @).

Guidelines for writing a Voices article can be downloaded from here.

* * *

Voices from the Sylff Community
July 2016

CONTENTS

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.

Call for Applications for FY2016

The Tokyo Foundation is pleased to announce Sylff Research Abroad (SRA) ’s call for applications for fiscal 2016 (April 1, 2016, to March 31, 2017). The deadline for the first selection round is June 28 (for those planning research abroad after July 28) and for the second selection is January 9, 2017 (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!

Access to Sylff website and Tokyo Foundation website (both English and Japanese) will be temporarily unavailable from 10 pm to 11 pm on Friday, April 15 (Japan Standard Time), while our web server is being upgraded to enhance access speed. We apologize for the inconvenience.