Nissan Motor Co. President Carlos Ghosn stressed the importance of young people experiencing work at nonprofit organizations, as he greeted participants to this year's NPO scholarship program sponsored by the automaker.
As part of its social activities, the automaker started in 1998 the Nissan-NPO Learning Scholarship Program to provide undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to work as interns at nonprofit organizations so they can learn from their activities and experiences.
Providing such opportunity is an important investment for the future, the automaker said.
"NPOs perform a variety of intellectual activities, and through the experience of working in such an environment, young people can develop their abilities to think, and I support the challenges of both parties," Ghosn told the students in a ceremony held at the automaker's headquarters Wednesday in Tokyo.
Nissan, which chose 19 students out of 112 applicants from 45 universities, will provide wages for the work they do at the NPOs.
Ghosn said that part of this year's program will be funded by contributions from Nissan employees who are donating a prize that they received for their efforts to manufacture ecofriendly vehicles.
The students will be working at 17 different NPOs in the Kanto and Kansai regions from the end of this month to February, working a maximum of 300 hours, it said.
The NPOs hosting the students include the Environmental Partnership Office, Sawayaka Welfare Foundation, Shapla Neer Citizens' Committee in Japan for Overseas Support, Tokyo Children's Library, Japan Center for International Exchange and Kobe Foreigners Friendship Center.