Sophia Magazine vol.2 / WINTER 2015

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things were especially challenging. The rst was publishing a PR brochure about UN Volunteers and their work in Nepal.“With the support of a German youth volunteer, I interviewed UN Volunteers and drafted articles in English, which required a lot of effort. But the feedback I got from various people after the brochure came out helped me feel their keen interest in Nepal-ese volunteers and their work,” she said. This led to the next challenge: she began to extend the PR activities through Facebook. “Because I had a good sense of people’s level of interest in local volunteer activities after we published the PR brochure, I hit upon the idea of introducing the work carried out by vol-unteer organizations in Nepal through social media, aiming to expand the network of UNV Nepal at the local level as well as to advocate for volunteerism. I also thought that it would be a good opportunity for local organizations to start building rela-tions with UNV,” she added.As Risa had hoped, the number of ‘likes’ on Facebook grew from 600 to 1,000. The colleagues at the ofce were pleased as she had indeed raised the ofce’s prole to an even higher level, achieving the goal of raising awareness of UNV and other volunteer organization activities among more locals. But she wasn’t done yet.“As UNV’s mission is to promote volunteerism, I conceived an essay contest for local youths on volunteering. The purpose was to recognize and encourage volunteer activities led by youths on the occasion of the annual International Youth Day in August. Unfortunately, my term of ofce expired in March, but I nished my duties by writing a project proposal and handing it over to my successor.” Checking Facebook upon returning to Japan, she found the number of ‘likes’ approaching 3,000 thanks to the posts of vol-unteer essays collected through the contest.Risa “stumbled around in the dark” right after she started her life in Nepal, but she found a breakthrough by learning Nepal-ese. One JICA staff member posted to Nepal kindly introduced her to a Nepalese teacher and she began studying. Basic Nep-alese skills enabled her to communicate better with local peo-ple, which made every day much more enjoyable than before. “One day, I ventured into a café where you can enjoy chai (spiced tea) and sweets and I made friends with the family who ran the place. Those new friends motivated me to study Nepal-ese harder,” she said. In Nepal, she found and stayed at a guesthouse for me-dium- and long-term visitors. Her fellow guests varied widely in nationalities and objectives. “One of them introduced me to a Nepalese woman who was my age. We soon became close friends and I visited her home almost every week,” she said.With the abilities that her acquisition of Nepalese granted her, she was able to interact with more locals who helped her look into the realities of the country. It was a big step forward for Risa, who had aspired to work in international development but remained somewhat confused about the conventional ap-proach to development after taking classes taught by Professor Masatsugu Shimokawa at Sophia, who has a critical view of development assistance.“I used to think that developing countries should be guided to develop, but when you take a hard look at the realities, you cannot necessarily say so. Today, both developed and devel-oping countries have common so-cial issues such as homelessness and the gaps between rich and poor or urban and rural areas. I became more convinced that a simple dis-tinction between developed and de-veloping countries is inadequate in the current situation.”While spending time in Nepal, what impressed her most was how active local youth volunteers were. “As youths, they participate in their society. While striving to make their own country a better place, they capture the global trends of sustainable development.” “I want to be able to think about both the area around my feet and the world. I came to think in this way after staying in Nepal,” she noted.After her graduation, Risa will start to work at a company in Japan which offers consulting services based on its geospa-tial information technology expertise to local governments and central government agencies, and which also operates exten-sively abroad.“Many of the problems that Japan faces are or will be com-mon to other countries in the world. So I would like to transfer the knowledge and lessons that I gain through domestic projects to projects overseas someday,” she said, expanding on her dream. By participating in UNYV, she was nally able to reset the path she wanted to take and embark on the journey she is un-dertaking today.Inspiration Gained through Connections with PeopleRisa with her friends in Nepal.17Student