As the seasons delicately and hesitantly shift, and the country mimics this slight tilt in the opening of its borders and the minds of its citizens, there are still individuals who continue to push for change.
Using coffee as an agency for progress isn't the most obvious choice, however, as the duo behind Ojizo Coffee has proven, it can be an effective apparatus for repositioning the way we deal with and accept problems such as gambling, financial difficulties, addiction, disability and homelessness.
Earlier this year, Stephen Milne, 47, and Fumihiro Tanaka, 48, partners in life and business, established Ojizo Coffee and its parent organization Social Shift to quietly revolutionize Japanese attitudes toward those aforementioned social issues. After all, they are likely to affect most people at one point in their lives. Milne, a native of Edinburgh, and Tanaka, who hails from Tokyo's Ota Ward, met six years ago after Milne relocated from Kagoshima where he lived for two decades and worked as an IT manager and buyer for a furniture company. The pair now live and work in Toshima Ward's quietly thriving Higashinagasaki area, which has seen a good deal of change due partly to the popularity of communal hub and coffee shop Mia Mia.
Along with a third partner in Ojizo Coffee, Motoki Hatanaka, Milne and Tanaka have managed to create, in only a few months, strong relationships with several outlets for their coffee including 42, a nearby cafe, and restaurant Oidon in Nishishinjuku, along with negotiations currently taking place with several other locations in the capital. On the back of a successful pop-up store at Shibuya's Miyashita Park and attendance at several influential trade fairs including Fes Liaison in Aoyama, the two men have their sights set on expanding their online business, presence in more physical locations and collaborations with social media influencers — all of which are currently in the pipeline. The coffee in question originates from fair trade farms in Uganda, Guatemala and Ethiopia, with the operation in Guatemala run entirely by female farmers.
One of the selling points of Ojizo Coffee is that 10% of the sales go to charities and services in Japan that deal with mental health issues. Every packet of Ojizo Coffee has a QR code that allows customers to check where the money has been sent, and they can then, if they wish to do so, keep in contact with these organizations. Transparency is one of the key components of their business, and consideration of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015, is what makes Ojizo Coffee a shining light in ethical and forward-thinking business practices.
"O-jizō is a Buddhist god who protects people who are in trouble and people who have had premature deaths,” Milne says when asked about the origin of the brand’s name. “However, o-jizō is also well known for protecting travelers. When you're homeless or going through mental health problems, it's a journey through life and, for me, the name seemed to match. If we can be the voice that reflects people who are going through these struggles, then ‘Ojizo’ seems to be the most appropriate name for us."
Ojizo recently teamed up with talented Tokyo-based illustrator and art director Richard Koyama-Daniels, who has produced a colorful and humorous design for an upcoming label called "Coffee Queen,'' which is scheduled to be available by the end of this year. Milne and Tanaka aren't stopping there — their three-year plan involves growing their online and retail presence in year one, opening their first Ojizo Coffee shop in year two and then using the profits to establish a series of drop-in centers for those who need help and support in year three. These are ambitious aims for a firm that was only established at the beginning of this year.
"I was once a patient of a welfare service facility and then progressed to being trained as a mental health support worker so this project is very close to my heart and personal experiences," says Tanaka, who has jumped wholeheartedly into Ojizo Coffee and Social Shift with discernible passion and determination. The quiet and humble Tanaka complements, perfectly, the gregarious and confident Milne, who speaks with energy and zeal about this far-reaching project.
"We are a not-for-profit brand in which all revenues are reinvested back into the company,” Milne says. "Using these funds in our second year we want to create a coffee shop, something like Mia Mia, a real community. The drop-in centers, which aim to have support services both in Japanese and English, will be geared toward people who want to restart their life. We would offer them training, rehabilitation and, once they get to a certain level and skill, they would be able to come and work in the coffee shop.
“Just by talking to someone — it could be another customer — it would be an environment where you could open up to other people."
The drop-in-center concept behind Ojizo is inspired by the Edinburgh-based homeless charity Social Bite, which has become a major employer of people experiencing homelessness and barriers to employment in addition to becoming the largest provider of free food for those in need in the U.K.
Milne emphasizes the need for more English-language support in Tokyo. Many residents in need of help and support find themselves overwhelmed by language difficulties or feel the need to bring spouses or friends who can speak Japanese in order for them to communicate with counselors and experts in mental health.
"There are a few services such as telephone services for those who want to talk or need help, such as the excellent TELL, who do a great job," Milne says. "But there's a difference between someone speaking on the telephone and talking to someone face to face. And you can check up on them. When you're on the telephone you don't really know the real situation that they are in. By meeting face to face you can check on their physical well-being as well as their emotional well-being."
Milne ends the interview with a kind of mission statement and a rousing speech about Ojizo Coffee's aspiring target to change the world and society in which they inhabit and a reminder that shifts in attitudes — and change in general — can make a positive and long-lasting impact.
"After a bit of a trepidatious start, we are here. Here now. And we are not going anywhere,” he says. “And it might take a year, five years or even 10, but we won't stop until an Ojizo store is in every town, where consumers have the flexibility to make ethical decisions regarding their purchases and such a simple little thing as drinking a cup of coffee can really make a social change for the good."
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