A group of seven young people from Bristol, England, will travel to Japan to take part in an inaugural educational exchange program as members of a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth group called Freedom Youth.
The Aug. 18 to 31 visit, predominantly to Tokyo with a side trip to Kyoto, is the result of a long-term networking effort between the Bristol City Council's LGBT Young People's Team and Japan's first openly lesbian politician, former Osaka councilor Kanako Otsuji.
Otsuji was so keen to get LGBT people from Bristol's groundbreaking Freedom Youth to come to Japan, where equivalent support networks are almost nonexistent, that she has become instrumental in organizing the trip.
Through her contacts, Otsuji established communication between Bristol's representatives and Kazuko Tanaka, the director of the Center for Gender Studies at International Christian University in Tokyo — one of the only places in Japan where there is an existing support group for LGBT students — where much of the exchange will take place.