Donations to this project are eligible for a 50% match as part of the 2025 Little by Little campaign! (while funds remain)

Gender Equality Japan Project #50827

Advance Wellbeing for Mothers in Japan

by World In You

Project Report | May 15, 2023
Creating Third Place for Disaster-Hit New Mothers

By Mio Yamamoto | Co-Founder and Executive Director

Dear generous donors,

We hope this email finds you well.

As part of promoting and raising awareness about the well-being of women in Japan, World in You have been hosting a series of interviews and speaker events featuring nonprofits and social entrepreneurs in the field.

In today's report, we are excited to share the story of Miyoko Sato, one of the social entrepreneurs World in You have collaborated with and supported.

Your support has enabled us to work with impactful social entrepreneurs like her. Thank you so much!!

"Creating a Third Place for Disaster-Hit New Mothers ~ A Midwife and Entrepreneur Miyoko Sato’s Life to Empower All Women"

~ Key message of this interview ~

Ms. Sato, a midwife and social entrepreneur in Tohoku, Japan, transformed her aspiration into action after being affected by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.
She has created third places for women, especially expecting and new mothers experiencing hardship, to be heard, empowered, and cared for deeply.
Her theory to change the world is “If you keep focusing on and solving the problems you face every day, it will become what you do.”
World in You opened a door to the world for her. She realized that the local issues they are working on are also universal, and there are things she can give back to the world, rather than just receiving support from others.

Enjoy the full article from here (linked to World in You blog article).

We have more stories like this and are translating them into English. We will keep you posted.

With gratitude,

Mio and World in You Team

Links:

Permalink

Nov 15, 2022
Release: Board Fellow Program 2022 Launch

By Mio Yamamoto | Co-Founder and Executive Director

ArrowArrow's diverse workplace seminar

Dear generous donors,

We are excited to be at the turning point of the Board Fellow Program 2022 to encourage cross-sector collaboration between private companies and non-profit organizations and develop future social impact leaders. The theme of the program this year is “Women’s career empowerment over the life-stage transitions.”

Thank you very much for your support in empowering women and advance gender equity!

The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2022 ranks Japan 116th out of 146 countries, which means Japan remains in last place among major advanced countries. 46.9% of women leave the workforce after having their first child, and almost half of the women who return to work have little choice but to choose a “Mommy Track” job which tends to slow or block career advancement in exchange for flexible or reduced work hours. The traditional gender roles such as childcare or family caregiving responsibilities placed more burdens on women during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This year, the Board Fellow Program will involve three direct-service non-profit organizations working on women’s career empowerment – ArrowArrow, Polaris, Mama-work Laboratory/Work Step – as well as business leaders from Shiseido, J.P.Morgan, and other companies, lawyers, an accountant, nonprofit leaders, and a city councilor. To kick off the program, World in You has been hosting a talk show series starting in Jun 2022 with various nonprofit organizations advocating for women’s empowerment in the workplace.

Masami Otsuki, CEO of Polaris, said “Now that we have been running Polaris for over ten years, we are excited to reflect our vision again through this program and discuss our future opportunities and roles to serve as a social organization with diverse participants.”
Rather than simply providing a volunteer opportunity for corporate leaders, the Board Fellow Program will have participants dive into social and governance issues over six months. In this way, the program will promote long-term collaborations, such as having corporate employees serve on nonprofit boards, a practice that is still rare in Japan.

For the full release and list of participants, please visit here.

With gratitude,

Mio and World in You Team

Polaris fellows working in various workplaces

Mama-work Laboratory's Women Draft Meeting

Links:

Permalink

Jul 5, 2022
Board Fellow Program 2022: Application Open

By Mio Yamamoto | Co-Founder and Executive Director

BFP 2022

Dear supporters,

Thanks to your generous support, we are able to continue our Board Fellow Program to help women-supporting nonprofits in Japan to build their leadership and organizational capacity and collaborate across different sectors to advance their mission. The program is a six-month action-learning program for business and nonprofit leaders to foster cross-sector collaboration.

This year's Board Fellow Program will focus on empowering women's diverse work styles. Many women face the need to change the way they work as their life stage changes including childrearing and caring for older parents. As the way women work and the state of society changes, many women-supporting nonprofits are in the transition period to revisit their mission and what they do to keep them relevant to societal needs.

World in You team has searched more than 100 organizations and spoken with dozens to identify innovative and promising nonprofits/social enterprises that aim to create the future of women's work. Among these organizations, Arrow Arrow and Polaris will join the Board Fellow Program to discuss their challenges and opportunities with participants from diverse backgrounds.

We are currently looking for 12-15 participants from the business, nonprofit, public, and other sectors to join the program to learn with and collaborate with the organizations. The program will be run in Japanese.

If you are interested in learning more about the program, and/or know someone who might be, please visit and share the call for application. (The page is in Japanese.) The application due is on July 25th.

Please also consider making contributions to the program so that we could support nonprofit participants with scholarships.

Thank you so much for your continuing support,

Mio and World in You Team

Links:

Permalink

‹ 1 2 3 4 5 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.