* This article is republished from the WIT (currently World in You) website (03/06/2021).

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
March 5, 2021
World in You (WIT)

WIT Launches Program Advancing Wellbeing for Japanese Mothers:

Donations Matching Campaign during International Women’s Week from March 8-12

Tokyo, Japan and online: Today, World in Tohoku (WIT) announced the launch of the Board Fellow Program to encourage cross-sector collaboration between private companies and social entrepreneurs in Japan. The theme of the inaugural year of the program, which will launch this summer, will be to advance wellbeing for mothers in Japan. Participants include three nonprofit organizations and fifteen private sector employees. WIT is currently collecting individual donations through GlobalGiving’s International Women’s Week Campaign and recruiting program sponsors. From March 8-12, all donations up to $50 during @GlobalGiving’s #InternationalWomensWeek will be matched 50%.

One in four mothers in Japan suffers from postnatal depression, and 46.9% of women leave the workforce after childbirth. The child poverty rate among single-mother households exceeds 55 percent. This situation has only worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic. This year, the Board Fellow Program will work with three direct-service nonprofit organizations working on issues of maternal wellbeing—Kizuna Mail Project, Nobel, and Madre Bonita, and individual and corporate participants including an employee from J.P. Morgan.

Rather than simply providing a volunteer opportunity for corporate leaders, the Board Fellow Program will connect nonprofits with corporations to build their organizational capacity. In this way, the program will promote long-term collaborations, such as having corporate employees serve on nonprofit boards, a practice that is still rare in Japan. Aki Ko, Founder of Nobel, said, “We look forward to scaling our impact to empower mothers in Japan through robust discussion with business leader participants during the Board Fellow Program.”

For more information on the Board Fellow Program and International Women’s Week Campaign, please visit: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/mothers-in-japan/

Nobel provides childcare for sick children of working mothers. Courtesy of Nobel.

A postnatal care class run by Madre Bonita. Courtesy of Junko Kimura-Matsumoto.

◆ About the participating nonprofits:

●The Kizuna Mail Project combats issues like postnatal depression and lonely child-rearing by promoting casual text message communication for new parents to establish connections with others.

●Nobel strives for a society where mothers can balance work and child-rearing by providing back-up daycares and childcare services for mothers of sick children.

●Madre Bonita empowers mothers to realize their full potential by providing postnatal care classes, instructor training, and research on postnatal child-rearing.

==========================================================================

For more information on the Board Fellow Program:
Please contact info@worldinyou.org if you are interested in programs on nonprofit boards, governance, and cross-sector collaboration to solve social issues.

About Us:
World in You cultivates leaders, organizations, and communities that co-create across boundaries to better society. We have provided leadership development programs to 200+ mission-driven organizations, 500+ leaders from the business and social sectors, and students.
Book “Governance of non-profit organizations” (2020, Eiji Press)