INTERVIEWCreating female leaders
who can truly accept Asia’s diversity
and work together to solve challenges

03 Women Leaders Program to Promote Well-being in Asia

YAMAMOTO, Eiko
Women Leaders Program toPromote Well-being in Asia
Program member

Bringing together a diverse mix of students and teachers
from various fields
At the doctoral program in leadership education, “Women Leaders
Program to Promote Well-being in Asia,” four graduate schools ofNagoya University (the graduate schools of Medicine, BioagriculturalSciences, International Development, and Education and HumanDevelopment) come together despite their divergent educational
backgrounds in order to offer practical education on how to train
future female leaders.
The program began in October of 2014, and the first generation ofparticipants were 20 people (16 female, 4 male) from Japan, China,
Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Jamaica, and were of varying ages andnationalities. This program involves a number of male participants
who express strong concerns regarding gender equality, withteaching staff and involved parties coming from a variety of different
backgrounds and fields. I am an obstetrician and gynecologist, andwas astonished at how people from such divergent backgrounds
could come together and collaborate so well, and sharing in theirexperiences helped me gain new perspectives. This is a field-uniting,boundary-crossing experience that perhaps only a university can truly
offer, and I hope even students take advantage of this program todevelop a wider perspective.

Learning about Asia’s problems and women’s
accomplishments through hands-on training overseas

In January of 2015, we held a hands-on training program in Vietnam,and investigated the on-the -ground realities of medicine andagriculture at each location. On the medical side of things, we paid
visits to urban and regional hospitals. One on-the-ground reality ourinvestigation revealed was that regional public hospitals tended todeliver 7,000 babies annually, while the largest national hospital in
the southern region specializing in obstetrics and gynecology, locatedin Ho Chi Minh City, delivered as many as 60,000 babies per year.
What these numbers indicate is that patients tend to seek treatment
from urban hospitals with more advanced equipment, a problem thatcertainly reminded our students of a similar problem in Japan
regarding the difference in treatment capabilities of urban andregional hospitals.
I believe the program also provided our students with an opportunity
to examine how social and familial structures supported the manyfemale doctors working at those facilities, to compare them withsuch structures in Japan, and gave them a chance to think about
women’s participation in society more broadly.
Upon returning to Japan, we gave a presentation on our findings, but
discovered that takeaways from the experience varied from person toperson, with students and teachers presenting unique discoveries.
Giving the students the opportunity to share their experiences andthoughts through research presentations provided an invaluable
growth opportunity for our students.

Understanding and accepting diversity, and encouraging
accomplishments as female leaders across the globe

Two years from now, we plan to hold overseas hands-on training
programs in Malaysia, Thailand, and Cambodia, and to have ourstudents personally coordinate the details of their training. We hope
our students will take that opportunity to think deeply on how they
can practically utilize their expertise to bring true well-being to Asia.
Through their personal experiences in the environments and culturesof the various Asian nations, students who participate in thisprogram will certainly gain a greater ability to appreciate diversity,and use these experiences to broaden their human interactions. I
hope that they take what they gained through this program tomeaningfully contribute to the international community as strong,visionary, female leaders. And, eventually, I pray that they will takethe knowledge they gain and use it to provide feedback on how
Japan can improve its own social and gender issues.

Program Outline
A program adopted by the MEXT in 2013. This willbe the first female leader training program at auniversity. The program offers collaborative training ofindividuals from different fields, and focuses onsolving the challenges faced by Asian countries ofvarying degrees of development in certain key areas,such as poverty, health, and gender inequality, with aparticular focus on keywords deeply related to thosechallenges,“food, health, the environment, socialsystems, and education.”The program seeks todevelop globally-minded female leaders focused onrealizing well-being in Asia that promotes physical,psychological, and sociological wellness, while
assuring individual rights and self-realization.

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PROFILEYAMAMOTO,
Eiko

Well-being Overseas Fieldwork (Vietnam)

Medical care

Female leaders- Tu Du Hospital- Coconut confectionary factory- Mekong Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital- Representative of NPO Japonica Agri(national obstetrics and gynecology hospital, Ho Chi Minh City)(private obstetrics and gynecology hospital, Ho Chi Minh City)(Female president, Ben Tre Province)- Nguyen Dinh Chieu Hospital

Agriculture- Service by midwives to visit newborns- Seeding Center (Ben Tre Province)(general hospital, Ben Tre Province / County)

Social activity

With the medical staﬀ at Tu Du Hospital- Rice / cow / vegetable farmers(Ben Tre Province)- School for handicapped students- Flower / banana / chicken /pig farmers (Hanoi)- Peace Village (within Tu Du Hospital)- National Hanoi Universityof Agriculture(Ben Tre Province)

Completed doctoral course in
Nagoya University Graduate
School of Medicine in 2006.
Doctor of Medicine. Presently
serves as a designated associate professor at the Nagoya
University Asian SatelliteCampus Institute. Her fields ofspecialization are gynecological tumors and trophoblastic
disease.

At a farmer’s home in Ben Tre Province

At a pig farm in Hanoi

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