This fundraising is to help Ashinaga organization in supporting orphaned students in Africa.
Every year in spring and autumn, there are about 200 volunteers who participate in street fund-raising activities that are carried out at about 200 locations nationwide and donate about 250 million yen annually.
However this year it couldn’t happen because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Still Ashinaga in its great commitment of supporting orphans around the world came up with online fundraising.
The Ashinaga International students Association is then throughout this fundraising page helping for the online campaign.
See some interesting projects done by some Ashinaga students and be more willing to give your support for the education of more talented young people who will enhance the rise of Africa.
1- Emmanuel Maseru
Emmanuel is a third-year student from Uganda studying Global Business at Akita. His proposed project aims to redefine waste management in Kampala (Uganda) by introducing his own “GOMI Economy” model in Uganda which was inspired by Japan’s efficient recycling industry. The GOMI Economy would contribute to two SDGs: sustainable cities and communities, and responsible consumption and production.
Emmanuel was awarded a grand prize as one of the winners in the 2019 Ashinaga-AFRECO collaboration program of the TICAD 7 Innovation Award for this project.
In 2020, Emmanuel has partnered with a rubbish collection company registered with Wakiso Town Council to engage 100 households for the pilot project. GOMI is also working with a back-end software developer to have a prototype ready by March 2020. But Emmanuel has more ambitious plans yet; Emmanuel will be using the opportunity he won through the pitch competition as an opportunity to finalize contracts with partner organizations.
Check this link is see further about Emmanuel’s project https://en.ashinaga.org/2019/10/04/innovation-award/
2- Amadou
Amadou is a first-year student from Senegal studying global business at Kanagawa Prefecture.
“I dream of changing people's lives in rural areas of Africa by creating businesses that will enable them to get employed. The main target will be women and young people who kept on moving from rural areas to the capital cities. I feel like it would make less opportunity cost in case we implement businesses in rural areas of Africa.”
He is an alumnus of the African Leadership Academy. Like many other alumni, he took the initiative to run entrepreneurial leadership camps in his home country, focusing on leadership development through applied learning. The program model aims to strengthen Africa’s youth-level entrepreneurial ecosystem by igniting an entrepreneurial mind-set among youth and facilitating concrete opportunities for first-hand experience designing and leading social or business ventures.
Further about the program Amadou runs is found in the link below https://en.ashinaga.org/2020/03/17/amadou-build/?fbclid=IwAR3DvnarUzP6NI5rrS-nmEcDi_vPDbDR_8sx8wyAo2uAaevOq1nbXg1lX5c
Please see now a study conducted by the Ashinaga Scholarship Foundation about the average monthly income of orphaned families in Japan.
According to that survey, the average monthly income of orphans' families is 146,380 yen(*1), and the rate of receiving welfare benefits is 12.8%(*2) which is far below the level that would allow people to pay for college or vocational school without scholarships.
Sources:
(*1) 2018 Survey on the Lives and Education of Scholar Families
(Lead researcher: Yoshiya Soeda, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of Tsukuba)
(*2) Survey of Public Assistance Recipients (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, approximate figures for July 2008)
As a result, many orphaned students pay their tuition fees with scholarships and their living expenses with part-time jobs. However, most part-time jobs for students are in the customer service industry. However, most of the students' part-time jobs are in the hospitality industry, and with the recent situation, their shifts are being cut day by day, making it impossible for them to earn enough money to live on. Furthermore, with the cancellation of street fundraising, even the securing of scholarship funds has become a dark cloud, and many orphaned students and their families are spending their days with an extraordinary sense of anxiety.
In Africa as we all know, the situation is more unfortunate. According to UNESCO, more than one-fifth of children aged 6 to 11 are out of school, followed by one-third of youth aged 12 to 14. According to the Institute for Statistics, almost 60 percent of youth aged approximately 15 to 17 are not in school. For orphans, you can definitely understand that the situation get much more worse.
Source: http://uis.unesco.org/en/topic/education-africa
So please make a donation and help Ashinaga to support brilliant orphans students.
Thank you so much for all your donations and please don’t forget to share it to your network. As said by Nelson Mandela “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
