FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 5th, 2021
Mio Yamamoto
World in Tohoku (WIT)
info@worldintohoku.org

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 toadvance 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, alldonations 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 theworkforce 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, theprogram 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 Japanthrough robust discussion with business leader
participants during the Board Fellow Program.”
For more information on the Board Fellow Programand International Women’s Week Campaign, please
visit
https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/mothers-injapan/

Photo 1: Nobel provides childcare for sick children ofworking mothers. Courtesy of Nobel.
Photo 2: A postnatal care class run by Madre Bonita. Courtesy of Junko Kimura-Matsumoto.

About WIT: WIT cultivates leaders, organizations,and communities that co-create acrossboundaries to better society. We have provided
leadership development programs to 200+
mission-driven organizations, 500+ leaders fromthe business and social sectors, and students.
http://worldintohoku.org/
About GlobalGiving: GlobalGiving is a nonprofit
that supports other nonprofits by connecting
them to donors and companies.
https://www.globalgiving.org/
About the participating nonprofits:
The Kizuna Mail Project combats issues like postnatal depression and lonely child-rearing bypromoting casual text message communication for new parents to establish connections with others.
https://www.kizunamail.com/
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.
https://nponobel.jp/
Madre Bonita empowers mothers to realize their full potential by providing postnatal care classes,
instructor training, and research on postnatal child-rearing.
https://www.madrebonita.com/###