Meeting of Enthusiastic Youths Who Heard Their ‘Inner Voice’ and Jumped on to Action

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Considering how difficult it is to find jobs today, the future of youths seem to be quite unpromising.  There are, however, a small number of grown ups and entrepreneurs working actively to support young people.  The ‘Fresh Career Course’ by Pasona (Ref.1,2)(in Japanese) designed to support new graduates is one of those examples.  I think these actions are wonderful.  I, too, participate as one of the supporting members for such right and compassionate actions.

On the other hand, there are increasing number of young people who have found what they really want to do through ‘on the site experiences’, in search for ways to reach the goals, and stepping forward towards the goal with great effort.  I wish to support them sincerely in my own capacity as I have introduced to you more than several times in my site (Ref.1,2).  
 
Two days ago I had guests at my office who gathered in spite of the heavy rain we had that day; Ms. Kanae Doi of Human Rights Watch, Mr. Shigeyuki Jo  (in Japanese) of Joe’s Lab, Mr. Yuske Matsuda and Mr. Kota Fukazawa, working hard to get on track their recently founded ‘Learning For All’ (in Japanese) (a group set up in preparation of the Japanese version of ‘Teach For America’ which I have introduced to you in this site 2 years ago ), Mr. Naoto Miyahira  of Soket and his colleague (Dr. Arai of D-Lab Japan).  My intention was to introduce them to each other to have them tell their ‘stories (monogatari)’ so that they may ‘connect’ and ‘expand horizontally’ as they see fit.  I am quite positive that many future-looking enprepreneurial activities will emerge and expand through them.

Youths hear their ‘inner voice’ through their ‘first hand experience’ and then be awakened, filled with passion.  Good examples include Mr. Saisyo and Miyoshi, students of Waseda University (on leave) and their colleagues who are currently working hard in Bagladesh (I have introduced them to you a number of times here (Ref.1) ), senior students who responded to my message of ‘Take Leave of Absence from School’, suspended their job hunting activities, took leave of absence from school and went to Moscow or is going to Ghana next week.

These students have much stronger ‘gut’ or ‘deep inner' feeling of the essence of important matters than most of the grown ups who always respond with ‘Reasons Why Something Cannot Be Done’.

We, the grown ups, should support and encourage those youths, but never interfere or obstract their paths.  This world is changing in a great speed.  The future of the young generation is the top priority for human resource development and the future of Japan.