Sawada Mei

 

Question: IDFC What prompted you to apply?

 

I first learned about IDFC through a friend from my undergraduate years. She had participated in IDFC2014 and told me, “It was really great!” At first, I did not pay it much attention, but she brought it up again before recruitment for IDFC2016 began. When I looked into it, I found that the theme that year was “Community Development,” and it immediately struck a chord. I am studying development studies at a graduate school in Switzerland, but most graduate study happens at a desk. That alone cannot show you the realities of developing countries, and I wanted to use all five senses to find out whether what I had read in the literature was true. The IDFC theme happened to match what I had been hoping for, and I got excited all by myself in my apartment in Geneva, thinking, “I have to participate!” (laughs)

 

 

Question: IDFC what scenes from it stand out in your memory?

　

This will be a little long, so brace yourself before reading. (Laughs.) The first thing that comes to mind is how difficult working as a team was. At IDFC2016, Japanese and Myanmar students formed teams to create presentations and videos for the symposium, and we really struggled during that process. Our team had two Japanese members and three Myanmar members, and at first we kept misunderstanding each other. For example, when preparing a presentation, we Japanese members wanted to decide first what we wished to convey, then develop the content and structure it so the message came across clearly. But as soon as the Myanmar members began the discussion, they started singing. Then they asked, “Don’t you think these lyrics are good because they bring the message to mind?” That really surprised me. (Laughs.)

 

I knew we thought differently, but I had not realized just how different we were. When I cannot agree with something, I make that clear, but it was difficult to get the students from Myanmar to understand me. I think part of the reason was that native speakers of Japanese and Burmese were trying to communicate in English. There were many occasions when, no matter how many times I explained something, the other person did not understand. So we moved forward very slowly, taking time to confirm each decision.

 

During all this, a small incident occurred. There was free time after the discussion, and each team could use it as they wished. Since our team was behind, we had decided to continue discussing. However, a Myanmar girl on our team insisted that she wanted to go sightseeing. Time was limited, and we needed to move the discussion forward, so I tried to persuade her to continue. She suddenly became upset, and after that, no matter what we asked her, she would only say, “I don’t know.”

 

 

Question: That certainly sounds difficult...

How did you overcome that situation?

 

It was very simple, but I tried thinking about how that person felt. Geneva, where I live now, really attracts people from all over the world, and everyone’s values are completely different. No two people are the same, so all kinds of perspectives are welcome. Even if I express a different opinion, people accept it, saying things like, “Mei, you have seen different things, so you think differently.” In other words, Geneva was an environment where differences were seen positively. So, starting from the premise that this person was different too, I tried to consider how they were feeling. I realized that constant discussions were indeed exhausting, and that they had traveled for 6 hours or more from Yangon to the host city of Mandalay, so I could understand their desire to go sightseeing. So I said, “Let us decide what needs to be decided, then go sightseeing!”

 

 

Question: Did anything change within the team after that?

 

After I started making a conscious effort to consider how others felt, the other members gradually began to change, too. Perhaps they realized that we had been imposing our opinions on one another. The Myanmar girl I mentioned earlier came to me and said, “I'm sorry.” After that, the atmosphere of the whole team changed. We gradually began thinking not just about what we wanted to do, but also about what we could do for the team. Everyone became able to find their own role and act on it.

 

I felt most moved at the end, when we actually gave our presentation to local students. At first we explained things in English, but some of the students who came to listen did not understand English well. At that point, the 3 Myanmar members of our team worked very hard to explain things to the local students in Burmese. Their faces were truly radiant, and I remember being so happy to feel, “Ah, all 5 of us are doing this together now.”

 

At first, I thought, “It will be difficult to work with this team,” or “In the end, I will probably only be able to rely on the Japanese members.” Looking back now, though, I was approaching things in terms of how to persuade the other person, or saying that something did not make sense logically. I think that attitude was what caused the initial clashes.

 

In the end, many local students attended our presentation, and the experience of 5 people with different languages and values creating one thing together was truly valuable. Because we had encountered so many obstacles, the joy was especially great.

 

 

Question: IDFC How do you think you changed after participating? 。

 

—Act by thinking about what you can give, rather than what you can gain

 

At first, I joined IDFC for my own benefit. I thought of learning about the local situation and gaining experience in projects involving other people as things I was doing for myself. But after participating, I began to think and act not only in terms of how I would change, but also what I could contribute to the people I worked with, my team, IDFC, and ultimately Myanmar. I put this into practice during an overseas internship. After IDFC ended, I spent about a month and a half interning at an education-focused NGO supporting street children in India. I am working on launching a new project there.

 

Question: Why did you decide to start a new project?

Could you also briefly explain what it involves?

 

The NGO's existing project had begun to lose direction. Since the NGO itself was based in Japan, it had no one permanently stationed in India. (In other words, I was all alone in India!) The representative had told me that we should form a partnership with a local business and needed to find a reliable partner so that the NGO could continue its activities.

 

But at that moment, I thought something was strange. You should first think about what you want to do, for whom and where, and therefore who you want to work with. I wondered whether starting by looking for a partner was putting things in the wrong order. If you cannot think about what you can offer the other person, I do not think you can build trust. So I asked the NGO's representative directly what they wanted to do for the people living in the slum. They said, “In the future, by enabling them to receive higher education, we want children living on the streets to be able to live independently.”

 

So I wrote a proposal and presented it. It was a project to enable street children in India to receive a continuous education from kindergarten through high school. By chance, the owner of a guesthouse who had helped me in India was involved in running a school in a town called Puri. I considered what I could do for the children, for the slums in India, and for the NGO. After thinking it through, I began working with the school in Puri because I wanted the children to receive higher education so that they could support themselves.

What comes next is truly surprising: the Indian owner had very close ties to Japan and had served as a tourism ambassador for Kyoto City. Because of that connection, the ultimate goal is for the children who study at the school in Puri to study abroad at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. I am usually in Geneva, so I cannot be involved very directly, but I plan to connect the representative with the school's owner and continue supporting them so that this project can become a reality.

 

 

Question: Please share a message for students considering participating in IDFC.

 

 

There is one thing I want to tell you: I hope you will jump in without fear. I want you to knock on IDFC's door with the courage to take on unfamiliar things without hesitation.

 

I had various worries at first too. Of course, I had never been to Myanmar, and I had never visited a developing country for anything other than travel. I wondered, “Will I be able to manage…?” While all the other participants were joining from Japan, I also wondered what people would think of me being the only one joining from Geneva, where I was studying abroad. But once I actually participated, all those worries turned out to be unfounded. I want to convey that if you take that step with a purpose, all sorts of things await you at IDFC, and you can discover things you have never seen before.

 

There are also many fascinating people at IDFC. Talking with other participants about our past experiences and our futures may have had an even greater impact on me than the individual projects. I met many friends whom I can continue to see even after the program ends, encouraging each other toward our respective goals. I also came to feel that I should work hard so that I can be active on the same stage as these people. If there is something you want to achieve, why not seize the opportunity IDFC offers and embark on a new adventure? You are sure to discover something important.