In Japan, the children’s homes often have inadequate resources to best prepare the children to overcome their circumstances. Only 5% of these children have access to wi-fi. Lack of access to crucial resources like computers creates huge deficits between children in the homes and their peers at school. Only 23% will go on to receive higher education or training after high-school, and a further 25% of these children will not complete their training. YouMeWe along with Knights in White Lycra have been fighting to narrow this gap.
On November 9th, an organised charity run took place in conjunction with Dr David Sweet’s ‘7 days, 7 marathons’ challenge. In a feat of amazing endurance, Dr Sweet ran a total of 310km. The finish line on the final day was the children’s home Fukushima Aiikuen. The children of Fukushima Aiikuen had made a finish line and banner to welcome him to the 128 year-old home. They were very excited to see him arrive, and some even ran with him over the finish line. Dr Sweet was sponsored by Skechers, who donated a pair of new shoes for each of the 73 children.
The funds raised on this campaign have been funnelled into homes like Fukushima Aiikuen. As well as providing access to computers, YouMeWe has been devoting our energies to development of our programs within the orphanages. English language skills of the children within the homes are flourishing with the help of our Night Zookeeper program. More children are completing their certifications in software programs thanks to our Digital Citizens Club. Our mentors are helping those kids on the verge of graduating to prepare for the next step; leaving the homes. Building these skills will be fundamental to their success after high-school, and for the rest of their lives.
We would like to thank Dr David Sweet, and all the runners who showed up on the day, along with all those who fundraised. It is so important to keep showing up for these kids; your support enables us to have a constant supportive presence for these kids.
Keep giving, and keep raising awareness!
“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” —Simone Weil
KIWL has been a tremendous support for our efforts. They are famous for their charity bike ride, but they have various events such as the November 9th GO GO Run followed by 7 marathons in 7 days event. Through these events, and others they have raised over 10,600,000 JPY of funding and are not slowing down. They ae continuing to support us in our important work within children's homes in Tokyo.
Dr. David Sweet will be running in the 7 marathons in 7 days event. Check out the interview between him and Michael in the links below.
There will be a KIWL and You Me We charity dinner on 9/27, everyone is welcome. You can find tickets in the links below.
Since our last report we have distributed over 70 computers, and we have expanded to more homes while holding weekly sessions with the various homes in Tokyo and events in Tohoku.
At this point we have distributed 450 computers to over 10 homes. It is not simply a physical donation, but it is also our volunteers and staff continuously visiting the homes to teach digital, and language skills. We know that this continuous support is so important for the kids.
We have also expanded our efforts to provide education as it pretains to children in need becoming digital citizens. We have done this by offering our computer language lession sessions to more and more homes;Ichigo Jam, Scratch, Sphero Bolt, and more.
For language classes we are working with NightZookeeper, which is now providing NZK Missions. (An easier version of the English teaching tool that has many games.) Which has helped us to engage more young students as many are at different levels and some kids have special needs.
This past month we provided over 30 volunteers, funding and support for our 10th annual summer camp for disadvantaged children in Tokyo. 30 kids participated from 3 homes, and through this summer camp we introduced many of the children to the Ichigo Jam class, where they could learn basic programming language to give commands to a robotic car as well as ExcelArt with Ma-chan, the 84 year old programmer with her Mellow Club members.
The kids sat for and received certification in software such as WORD, POWERPOINT and EXCEL. They also presented their AI ideas and POWERPOINT skills to executives at Microsoft.
Moving forward:
We are putting the finishing touches on a new digital citizen's curriculum which we are looking to offer in the coming few months.
We are also be offering support with financial literacy training and career assessments to the older kids. This means gauging their interests, personality and competency, which will then determine possible career paths. We believe this is extremely valuable to help disadvantaged children focus on their future, and how they can thrive in society.
Our partnership with KIWL has been invaluable. KIWL is a diverse group of people but in the diversity we are reminded that we all have more similarities than differences and the main focus of giving back and investing in the childrens' futures will be paid forward for generations to come.
Links:
Programming Skills Education:
We continue to hold workshops where the kids learn about computer programming through hands-on methods. One long-running program is Code Club another is our weekly Digital Citizenship course.
Weekly Digital Citizenship lessons at St.Joseph's inTanashi.
We have added another computer coding tool to our education arsenal.
SCRATCH: From the MIT media lab, Scratch allows kids to program their own games, stories, and animations. It builds on the same idea of using a
programming language to complete a task. It also adds a collaborative aspect allowing the kids to connect with other young users in different countries.
MIT
"With great responsibility."-As educators we are committed to providing our students with all the tools necessary to make good decisions with the knowledge they are acquiring. And to show it we got the stamp of approval as a Common Sense Educator.
Common Sense
Currently, KIWL is preparing for the big charity bike race for 2019, which will finish in Fukushima. Here is the crew holding a race planning meeting. We will also have an event to hand out the racing jerseys to the riders. So far over $83,000 has been raised since December 2018
KIWL1283
KIWL Pub Quiz where we raised over 245,000 JPY with over 100 participants
KIWL100245
Volunteer event at the home the KIWL bike ride will end at. The kids preparing for the riders finish line celebration. We introduced a photo contest, drones, laser cutter printers and a few more surprises.Readyfor Campaign Reminder
We are urgently seeking donations for our summer camp for orphans, YouMeWe NPO raised 178,000 yen so far in weeks via fundraising site Readyfor and we still need 322,000 yen more. If anyone can donate even just a small amount of 1,000 yen, which is about the same price as a bowl of ramen, it would be much appreciated. If we can get as many people as possible to pay for one bowl of ramen, we will be able to achieve our 500,000 yen target.
YouMeWeReadyfor3178,000 322,0001,000500,000
https://readyfor.jp/projects/DAA2019
Sphero ball training at Matsubaen. The children teaching the children.
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