Japanese group ACE works to end child labor and foster education across developing world
In 1998, a march to protest child labor involving people in 107 countries made Yuka Iwatsuki realize that the issue, which she had been interested in since college, was a global movement. She also realized that there were no organizations in Japan leading the ...
Entrepreneur's message to Japan's forgotten non-college-educated youth: You can choose your life
It wasn't until he turned 18 that Daisuke Kuse saw businessmen dressed in dapper suits up close and personal. Until then, Kuse — having spent all of his childhood surrounded by working-class families and friends in a small town in Kyoto Prefecture — had ...
Japanese makeup guru on crusade to revamp men's grooming habits
As a university student, Hiroki Takahashi could barely step outside his home without a surgical mask on. Even when he did venture out, he was terrified of the fluorescent lighting ubiquitous in convenience stores and trains that ruthlessly illuminated what he was desperately trying ...
Japanese volunteer's initiative allows Cambodians to see future beyond dumps where they scavenged
In Anlong Pi, a village on the outskirts of famous tourist destination Siem Reap in northwestern Cambodia, a group of women gather each day to peel bark from 3-meter-long sections of banana tree trunks. The bark pulp taken during the process, akin to peeling ...
Yuzuriha support center in Tokyo helps abuse victims get back on track
Open the door to a small studio tucked away on a street near Kokubunji Station in western Tokyo on a Friday evening, and you'll find a group of young adults making jam or Japanese ponzu citrus-based sauce as they chat quietly amongst themselves. The scene ...
Entrepreneur generates electricity solely from used cooking oil collected throughout Tokyo
For Yumi Someya, Tokyo is an untapped oil field, full of potential to generate electricity. The precious fuel, however, doesn't exist underground. It's a resource sitting in the kitchens of millions of Japanese homes — cooking oil. Someya's ultimate goal is to collect every last drop ...
Goichiro Toyoda taps technology in bid to save Japan's health care system
Goichiro Toyoda, 34, has an impressive resume. A graduate of the prestigious University of Tokyo faculty of medicine, Toyoda worked as a brain surgeon in Tokyo before leaving to become a research scholar at Children's Hospital of Michigan. Toyoda, however, eventually quit what looked to ...
Japanese woman works to give impoverished Filipinos path to education and jobs
While in college, Takako Yamada was determined to brighten the days of impoverished Filipino children through sports and leisure activities — a right she believed some of them had been deprived of. The student, now 32, said that at the time, she believed her efforts ...
From the DJ booth, man with ALS taps into tech to brighten future for all
Masatane Muto slowly maneuvers the controller on his power wheelchair with his right hand to move around his Tokyo office. He can barely move his body on his own and needs the help of a colleague to take occasional sips from the straw in his ...
Real estate for the people: One man's mission turning vacant houses into homes for everyone
Hideki Kawakita doesn't look like your average real estate agent. Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt spotted with bright purple and yellow illustrations, he looks more like a traveler, or maybe a writer. Perhaps it is precisely his unpretentious manner that has allowed him to single-handedly ...
It's often difficult for people to maintain the enterprising spirit they had when they first entered the workplace, fresh out of university. Especially in a large company it is difficult for people's voices are heard, and often they feel isolated as there are not many ...
It's tough for asylum-seekers to keep their hopes up in Japan, where only 1 in every 1,000 applicants was granted refugee status last year. While waiting, which takes more than 10 months on average, they practically have nothing to do. Only those whom the Justice ...
