glolab is organizing “Mirai (Future) Challenge” Program, the program helping young people between the ages of 15 and 20 who have immigrant background to have broaden perspectives on their career, to think about the future, and to take on new challenges.

　This program is part of Sumitomo Corporation’s “100SEED” social contribution program, which is a collaborative project with the “Future Creation Project for Foreign Roots Youth” of the Japan Center for International Exchange (JCIE), and is being implemented with the cooperation of the pro-bono team of Sumitomo Corporation, the Tokachi Urahoro Raksha, and volunteers from Urahoro town. The program is also sponsored by the Dentsu Scholarship Foundation.

We would like to report on “Post-learning of Online Training Camp” session that is the part of this programs.

Overview of the “Mirai Challenge Program” Online Training Camp

　■ Date: October 3, 2021
　■ Participants: 2nd year junior high school students to 3rd year high school students
　■ Number of participants: 6 (Program participants: 9, including 3 absent)
　■ Format: Online
　■ Aims:
　　　1.　To be able to take continuous action toward goals
　　　2.　To enable participants to interact with each other and to acquire the ability to promote discussion.
　■Contents
1) Review of the camp and up to October
2) Goal setting until December and sharing of concerns for the future

About the Post-learning of online camp

The purpose of this event was to review the online training camp held in August this year with people working in Urahoro-cho, Tokachi-gun, Hokkaido, and to create action goals to take a step toward the future. It had been two months since the last Mirai Challenge Program was held, but the atmosphere was so good that the participants didn’t feel it.

In the group work where they reported on their actions after the camp, all the participants talked about how they are making the most of what they learned at the camp and how they are working hard to gather information for their studies, club activities, and career paths. Since the participants were more forward-thinking than we had expected, we asked them to discuss in groups not only what they were going to do to achieve their goals, but also what they could not do alone and what they wanted to know more about and ask about. This allowed us to learn more about the real concerns of the participants and to have deeper discussions than we had imagined.

Participant-led Group Work

Next year, in March 2022, the participants will actually go to Urahoro-cho and hold an experience-based camp. In preparation for this, we decided to have the participants take the initiative in group work from this time so that they can enhance their autonomy and create a relationship that will facilitate conversations among them. The adults assigned to each group gave advice on how to ask questions and summarize the discussion, and the facilitator was changed for each work, so that all participants experienced the role of facilitating the discussion. As the participants gave their presentations, they became less tense and their expressions became more cheerful. Some of the participants commented that they enjoyed facilitating the discussion on their own, and we hope to design a program that allows the participants to take more initiative in the future.

In order to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the Mirai Challenge Program continues to be handled online, but each time the participants are sincere in their commitment to the program content. We can only hope that we will soon be able to meet all the participants in person, as they have shown great growth.

The next session will be the second post-event study. We, the planning staff, will improve our skills so that we can answer the participants’ “I want to know” and “I want to ask” questions!

Report author: Li Shu