Sept 23 Speaker introductions

Morning Panelists:
Masaki Inaba, Africa Japan Forum (AJF)
Noriko Takasaki, Association for Aid and Relief (AAR)
Atsuhiro Oguri, African Development and Emergency Organisation (ADEO)
Jane Best, Refugees International Japan (RIJ)
Moderator:
Sarajean Rossitto, PSC Convener

Masaki Inaba, Africa Japan Forum
Masaki Inaba has been working in Japanese civil society since 1990, first in the poor district of day workers in Yokohama as the director of medical team of day-workers labor union, and second in gay and lesbian communities in Japan to advocate rights of LGBTs. As the program director for global health, he has been working in Africa Japan Forum since 2002 to connect global communities and Japanese civil society working on HIV/AIDS. Also, he has been working with African civil society working on HIV/AIDS to scale up contribution of Japanese aid with better quality.

Masaki will talk about two HIV/AIDS programs of Africa Japan Forum. The first one is capacity building of Japanese NGOs on infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and Malaria in Africa and other developing countries. The second one is supporting African migrants living with HIV/AIDS in Japan. When these migrants return to their mother countries, it's necessary to ensure continuity of access to treatment between Japan and these countries. AJF has been working to realize the cross-border continuity of access to treatment between Japan and African countries.

Africa Japan Forum, founded in 1994, is a coordination mechanism of Japanese NGOs working on African issues. It has been working to promote activities of Japanese NGOs working on Africa by information exchange, setting lobbying and advocacy activities for Japanese government and aid agencies, and organizing opportunities of capacity building. Also, it has been working for promoting better understanding of Africa in Japanese civil society by seminars and telephone counselling, and supporting African migrant communities in Japan especially in the field of HIV/AIDS.

Jane Best, Refugees International Japan
Jane lived in Zambia for over three years in the 1970s working as a British Volunteer. She has been in Japan for 22 years and worked with several NGOs during that time. For the last seven years she has been Grant Director for Refugees International Japan, monitoring the programmes to be funded. She visits project areas every year and has been to West, East and Southern Africa on RIJ business. She has just been appointed President and CEO of RIJ, while continuing her responsibilities with the programmes.

Jane's talk will look at the work that RIJ funds in Africa with particular emphasis on capacity building and repatriation. RIJ is currently funding twelve projects in Africa. I will highlight two projects: a youth project for Angolan refugees and an income generation project for female returnees to Eritrea. The youth project began in a refugee camp in Namibia and was so successful that the implementing organisation requested funds to continue a similar scheme in Angola to help youth re-integrate upon repatriation. The Eritrean programme offers training in business management for female-headed households in areas where refugees have returned. Both programmes have been successful but have different problems which present useful comparisons.

Refugees International Japan is a volunteer, independent, nonprofit organisation that raises funds to assist refugees around the world. RIJ also raises public awareness of refugee issues, regularly involving the local community in many of its fundraising activities. RIJ is staffed entirely by volunteers from the Japanese and foreign communities in and around Tokyo and to date has distributed over US$7 million to more than 500 refugee projects in over 40 countries worldwide.

Atsuhiro Oguri, African Development and Emergency Organisation (ADEO)
Atsuhiro is a Senior at Tokyo University majoring in Social Sciences. He originally joined as an ADEO intern in Kenya 2003~2004. He has worked as Documentation Trainee Officer, coordinating HIV/AIDS youth programs, and writing proposals for VCT projects. He also helped establish ADEO Japan in Japan in Oct. 2003. since joining ADEO Japan he started up the HIV/AIDS projects targeting Japanese youth, has worked to send Japanese students to ADEO-Africa and has been the Tokyo Representative since April 2006. He also is a Board member of YDP Japan Network, a network of more than 60 Japanese youth organizations.

In his presentation today, Atsuhiro will introduce two of ADEO Japan's key programs. The first will be about the exchange work they do with youth in Japan and several African nations. He will also introduce the HIV/AIDS project targeting Youth in Japan.

African Development and Emergency Organisation (ADEO) is an African non-religious, non-sectarian, non-political and gender sensitive NGO, operating in Africa. ADEO was established in 1998 by African professionals with substantial experience in both relief and development in the Eastern Horn of African region. To provide primary Health Care including HIV/AIDS and Education services in relief and development to the disadvantaged populations in Africa. ADEO Japan aims to contribute to the development of Japanese and African society through the stimulation of people's understanding and behavior change towards global and cross-cutting social problems.

Noriko Takasaki, Association for Aid and Relief
Noriko currently serves as a Programme Coordinator at the Association for Aid and Relief, Japan (AAR JAPAN). She has a BA in both Management Studies and Psychology from Leeds University. Noriko joined AAR JAPAN in October 2004, and currently in charge of programmes in Sudan and Zambia and she is based at the Tokyo Headquarters. She previously worked in Burkina Faso for 18 months assisting in the development of HIV/AIDS programmes for Africare, a US-based NGO.
(talk details forthcoming)

Association for Aid and Relief, Japan(AAR Japan) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) aiming to provide emergency assistance, assistance to people with disabilities, and mine action, among other operations. It was established in 1979 as an organization with no political, ideological, or religious affiliation. AAR currently has offices in eight countries and works in 10 countries worldwide.

Moderator: Sarajean Rossitto, PSC Convener, founded the PSC in February 2005 with the goal of getting more people involved in NGO and community based work through network and skill development.
http://sarajean-r.blogspot.com/ (Full bio below.)

Concurrent Skills Building Workshops
For students, nonprofit NGO staff, volunteers and anyone interested in getting involved.
Workshop A: Managing volunteers and interns
Workshop B: Effective PR and outreach for nonprofits and NGOs
Workshop C: Creative fundraising

Workshop A: Managing volunteers and interns
Objective:
Review of the cycle for coordinating interns and volunteers, sharing of key strategies for proactive mgt.
Facilitator: Sarajean Rossitto, nonprofit NGO consultant
Sarajean Rossitto, an activist committed to progressive social change, is currently a Tokyo-based NGO and nonprofit consultant. She is the Tokyo representative for a number of US-Japan nonprofit projects including International Global Internships and the Japan Women’s Leadership Initiative. She has volunteered with groups including JVC, TELL, PARC and IMADR. She spent 3 1/2 years coordinating bilateral exchange of community-based activists between the US and Japan for Nichibei Community Exchange (JUCEE). Sarajean holds a Masters of International Affairs degree with a focus on Human Rights in East Asia. Prior to this, she spent 6 years coordinating programs at the Tokyo YMCA. In her first job as a student organizer, she traveled the state of NY organizing lobby visits, issue education workshops, and grassroots trainings. Sarajean founded the PSC with the aim of getting more people involved locally to affect borad based change.

Workshop B: Communicating Strategically, Hints from the Advertising Industry:
Effective PR and outreach for nonprofits and NGOs
Objective: Improve your communications strategy for outreach to diverse audiences
Facilitator: John McCreery, the Word Works
John McCreery is an anthropologist, adman, writer, author of Japanese Consumer Behavior: From Worker Bees to Wary Shoppers (U. of Hawaii Press, 2000), regular contributor to Bestoftheblogs (http://bestoftheblogs.com), formerly International Vice Chair, Democrats Abroad. He has lived and worked in Japan since September, 1980. Was employed as an English-language copywriter and creative director by Hakuhodo, Japan's 2nd largest advertising agency, from 1983-1996. John is currently one of the two principals (the other being Ruth McCreery) who own and operate The Word Works, Ltd., a supplier of consulting, copywriting and fine translation services.

Workshop C Creative fundraising skills
Objective: Learn and share innnovative techniques for raising funds
Facilitator: Daniela Papi, PEPY Ride
As an American teaching English in Shizuoka-ken, Daniela Papi found herself with the time and motivation to work on a variety of NGO projects. Over the past three years, she has fundraised for organizations in Uganda, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Nepal, Cambodia, inner city USA, and of course Japan. Her current project is called The PEPY Ride which she co-founded. The first ride brought together five women and educational resources to schools across Cambodia and raised $35,000 dollars for the NGO Japan Relief for Cambodia. In less than two years PEPY has raised over $100,000 in support of Cambodian education projects. They have also assisted with Hurricane Katrina relief.