Produced by OCHANOMIZU UNIVERSITY SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL, GEIC and The Japan NewsRANchi TIMESPROFESSIONAL EDITION, FEBRUARY 2018

Angkor Wat, a symbol of Cambodia

Around the world, 58
millionchildrenofprimary school age are
not receiving any education, theUnited Nations Educational,
ScientificandCulturalOrganization (UNESCO) saidin the 2015 Education for All
Global Monitoring Report. In
2015, the United Nations adopted
Sustainable Development Goals
as “a universal call to action toend poverty, protect the planetand ensure that all people enjoy
peace and prosperity.” Goal
4 aims to resolve educational
issues by “ensuring inclusiveand quality education for all andpromoting lifelong learning.”
UNESCO is playing a leadingrole in accomplishing this goal.
In 2016, this organization carriedout a project to support education
systems in 16 villages of Siem
Reap, Cambodia. According toUNESCO, these villages havethree main problems: many
students drop out of school,
unstable income and a shortage ofhuman resources. High dropout
rates are often the result of theparents’ lack of understanding
about school education. The
majority of residents are farmersand do not have enough skills toearn money from second jobs, andthey lead lives of poverty in areas
frequently affected by floods
and droughts. Human resources
are limited because of the mass
killings committed by the Pol Pot
regime in the 1970s.
Sixteenprimaryschools
UNESCO built in these villages
helped solve these problems
by providing many courses
for local residents. One course
conducted for children who had
dropped out of school enabled
them to complete a six-year
primaryschoolcurriculum
within two years. Other courses

taught adults to read and write,
master handicraft techniques,raise livestock and grow crops.
UNESCO also put emphasis on
training local teachers and, as aresult, three schools now operate
without any support by thisorganization.
Ochanomizu
UniversitySenior High School students took
part in an educational assistanceproject in Cambodia in 2017.
C-Rights, a certified nonprofit
organization, collaborated withthem. In Thonat, a community
where the project was conducted,
many children have never been
to primary or secondary school,or they dropped out before
completing their education. Manybeg or work as child laborers incasinos, factories or construction
sites. The major cause of thissituation is that parents do notunderstand the importance ofschool education and regard theirchildren as breadwinners for theirfamily, according to C-Rights.
The students made workbooks
to help children in Thonat who
cannot receive schooling. These
workbooks contain arithmetic
equations featuring examples
involving banknotes, vocabulary
in Khmer and English, and simple
maps so they can acquire theminimum abilities needed in their
daily lives. These workbooks werelaminated to keep them in goodcondition even in Cambodia’s

humid climate and then sent to thechildren. The workbooks are now
helping children learn important
knowledge. “In the near future, wewant to create an updated versionof the workbook containing much
more information, because webelieve it is essential to continue
to solve educational problems ata personal level. Though it may
seem a little difficult at first,
anyone can do it,” one of thestudents said.
As Malala Yousafzai said in
her speech at the United Nationsin 2013, “Education is the onlysolution” for various issues intoday’s world. To achieve theSustainable Development Goals,
the United Nations is callingfor everyone “to do their part:governments, the private sector,civil society and people like you.”
Leave no one behind.
By Nanaka Urano, Kaoru
Hashimoto, Yuiko Mizuno

Credit: Nanaka Urano

Credit: Kaoru Hashimoto

EDUCATION VITAL FOR CAMBODIAN KIDS

Workbooks students made for children
in Cambodia

Credit: Yuka Inoue

Welcome to Bunkyo, the most livable ward in Tokyo

The calligraphy club produced this workat a civic hall in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo,in 2017

Do you know much about
Bunkyo? Bunkyo is one ofTokyo’s 23 wards. It has apopulation of about 220,000
people and is a comfortable areafor families and foreigners tolive. Bunkyo has the third-lowest
crime rate of Tokyo’s wards andthe second-highest number ofgeneral hospitals and universities.

About 9,000 foreign people
live in Bunkyo. The International
Cultural Exchange Festival isheld in a civic hall every February
to promote mutual understanding
between foreign and Japanese
residents and create a welcoming
community for everyone. The
calligraphy club of OchanomizuUniversity Senior High School

performs at this festival.
For these and many otherreasons, we believe Bunkyo is anice place to live.
By Kana Endo, Eri Saito, YukaInoue, Airi Matsumoto2PROFESSIONAL EDITION, FEBRUARY 2018

RANchi TIMES

Lifestyle
Look stylish and help the environment with ethical fashion

A part of the promotion movie we made.

and a movie to spread awarenessof ethical fashion gave us
more understanding about thisconcept. Ethico is a brand wecreated. We placed particularemphasis on making fashionableclothes using ethical materials
such as pure cotton blouses
made in Japan and handmade
textiles made by people withintellectual disabilities. The
brand targets young
people.
One of the biggest
challenges in theethico project was
making a promotion
video. Our video was
widely praised anddescribed as being
well-made, and we
exhibited the video at

the EcoPro 2016 international
exhibition on the environment
and energy held in Tokyo. Our
video impressed the audienceand we received a lot of positive
feedback.
Ethical fashion is ecofriendly and people-friendly.
It starts from thinking about
who made the clothes youbuy, where these clothes weremade and how. Clarifying thebackground of clothing is thefirst step to joining the ethicalfashion movement.
Credit: Momoka YamamoriEthical fashion is clothing
produced and distributedin ethical and sustainable
practices. Supporting ethicalfashion helps maximize thebenefits delivered to local
people and minimize the impact
agricultural chemicals cause on
the environment.
Starting a new brand called“ethico” and making blouses

By Mizuki Homma, Chiaki
Maekawa, Momoka Yamamori,Shione Yokoyama

An “ethico” blouse.

“What makeshappy?” If
were asked
what would

Credit: Nanako Aoyagi

What makes you happy? The answer might be surprising

youyouthisyouquestion,answer?
The World Happiness Report2017 compiled by the Universityof British Columbia ranked thehappiness level of 157 countries
based on six factors: GDP percapita, social support, healthy
life expectancy at birth, freedom
to make life choices, generosity,and perceptions of corruption.
Japan was ranked 53rd in thisreport.
Do you agree with thisfinding? When it comes tofreedom to make life choices andgenerosity in Japan, women’s
participation in society andgender equality remain below
where they should be. According
to the Ministry of Internal
Affairs and Communications,the rate of women’s regular
employment in Japan is about 20percent. This low employment
rate for women contributed toJapan’s ranking.
However, a Chinese student
studying in Japan said, “Ienvy Japanese women because
they can choose whether theywork or not.” Can it be said
with certainty that women’s
participation in the workplacealways equates to happiness?
Theseindexes
havedrawbacks because they are
unfamiliar to many high school
students and too abstract toeasily comprehend.
Inspired by this, we made ouroriginal indexes for determining
happiness levels. Our indexes are
the number of national holidays,
air pollution, availability of safe
drinking water, global safetyindex, energy intake from food,enrollment rate in secondary
education and GDP per capita.
These indexes were consideredand selected from the perspectiveof high school students basedon our experiences. We sent aquestionnaire to people in 15
countries, which enabled us
to realize how “happiness” isgrasped worldwide. It revealed
that differences in culture leadto differences in how happinessis interpreted.
When calculated using ouroriginal indexes, Japan’s ranking
moved up to seventh. This issignificantly higher than theresult given by the Universityof British Columbia report.
By changing perspectives orindexes, the level of “happiness”
varies. From our research,
we realized the difficulty inmeasuring “happiness.”
The process and analysis of
our research is described on
our website. Our achievements
were highly evaluated and won
second prize in a competitionin which junior high and seniorhigh school students choose asubject to research and create a
website to display their work.
Please check out our website:
http://what-makes-youhappy.jp/index.e.html
By Nanako Aoyagi, Natsumi
Ii, Suzu Ikuma, Mizuki
Inage,Yuki Ueda

RANchi TIMESPROFESSIONAL EDITION, FEBRUARY 2018

3Regions
Tohoku still needs support to recover from 2011 disaster
Number of evacuees

500,000
450,000
400,000
350,000
300,000
250,000
200,000
150,000

50,0000Mar2011

Jun2011

Dec2011

Oct2012

Apr2013

Oct2013

Apr2014

Oct2014

Number of evacuees

Japanesepeople
shouldnot forget the disaster that
happened almost seven years
ago. Many people in the hardhit Tohoku region still live inApr2015

Oct2015

Feb2016

Mar
2017

Credit: Satomi Tooyama

100,000

evacuation shelters.
On March 11, 2011, theGreat East Japan Earthquake
struck off the Pacific coast ofTohoku. The earthquake had amaximum seismic intensity of 7
and triggered a massive tsunamithat devastated the Sanriku coast.
As of December 8, 2017, 15,894
people were confirmed dead and2,546 people remained missing.
The number of evacuees has
dropped from a peak of 470,000
to 119,000.
However,cleaningup
debris and rubble and sending
relief supplies are not the only
assistance disaster victims need.
A first step for volunteers is toknow the actual situation andissues the victims face.
Students in Ochanomizu
University Senior High School’s
Afghan Volunteer Club visited
the Tohoku region in 2015. Local
residents told them about thedisaster, and the students visited
a temporary shopping street. Thisvisit taught the students about

the situation in the region andhow reconstruction work wasprogressing.
Going to the affected areas is
an excellent way to learn about
the disaster, and books andtelevision programs also are goodsources of information. Buying
goods made or grown in Tohoku
also is a great way to support theregion. To prevent people fromforgetting about the disaster,
it is important for each of us tocontinue supporting the Tohoku
region.
By Saya Kaneko, Arisa Ito,
Satomi Tooyama

Clever plants, tasty treats highlights of Okinawa trip
hectares. The forests, which
could help prevent salinization,
are being transformed into timberand shrimp farms.

the word about its deliciousness
to people of various generations.
We sold 500 servings of taco ricein two days and many customers
said it was tasty.

Taco rice

By Emi Sen, Yuuka Niwa,
Kaede Kokufuda, Yuka Negishi,
Yuki Katayama, Saeko Osada,
Minami Ohara, Yuka Toyoshima

In Okinawa, we ate taco riceand found it delicious. Tacorice is a traditional dish ofOkinawa and consists of spicy
meat covering a pile of rice
topped with cheese, tomatoes andlettuce. The origin of this dish is
the Mexican taco. It can be said
that the method of mixing these
ingredients resembles Okinawa’s
traditional
cooking
methodcalled chanpuru, which stirs
various ingredients together. It
is a symbol of Okinawa’s uniquefood culture.
Local residents said fast
food has recently become
more popular among people in
Okinawa, and fewer people eat
traditional dishes. We came up
with an idea of selling taco riceat the school festival to spread

Credit: Minami OharaOn our trip to Okinawa,
we had a precious
experience of observing
mangroves with our own eyes.
Our guide told us mangroves aregroups of plants growing in mud
containing sulfur between a riverand the sea in subtropical zones
and tropical zones. We were
surprised to learn mangroves do
not mean a single type of plant.
We realized the importance oflearning about nature by seeing it
firsthand.
Mangroves
grow
where
seawater and freshwater mix. It is
hard for most plants to live there
because of the high salt density.
Mangroves have evolved toadjust to this severe environment
and escape the struggle forsurvival in the jungle.
We will introduce two peculiarfeatures of mangroves. The firstis the slim shape of their seeds.
Thanks to this shape, the seedcan pierce the unstable mudwhen it falls, and it then is able

to sprout. Not all seeds stick in
the ground, though. According toour guide, some seeds are carriedout to sea and start to germinate
in other lands. As a consequence,mangroves prevent themselvesfrom becoming extinct due toenvironmental changes.
The second feature is theirability to excrete salt by dropping
their leaves. Mangroves filter
seawater through their roots.
Salt that does not get filtered out
concentrates on the leaves, whichhinders efficient photosynthesis.
Mangroves drop those leaves toremove this salt.
The ability of mangroves
to remove excess salt has
attracted the attention offarmers. Mangroves can be agood solution for the problemof salinization, which makes alarge impact on farming because
most plants cannot live in places
with a high salt density. In theirbook, Takehisa Nakamura andHisao Nakasuga say in Thailand
the mangrove forests have shrunkfrom 370,000 hectares to 200,000Credit: Emi Sen

Mangroves

Left: Mangrove saplings.
Right: The taco rice we made for the school
festival.

4RANchi TIMESPROFESSIONAL EDITION, FEBRUARY 2018

Social challenges

Learning from Taiwan on women’s
empowerment, infrastructure

Taiwanrankedsixth
among the 14 AsiaPacific countries includedin the Mastercard Women’s
Entrepreneurial Index 2016, asurvey gauging women’s social
advancement and economic
power. Taiwan ranked higher
than neighboring countries China,South Korea and Japan. It isevident that women in Taiwan
are steadily increasing their
participation in the society.
Thirty-three students from
Ochanomizu University SeniorHigh School visited Taiwan in
October 2016 for an international
exchange. During their stay,a female parliament member
gave a lecture about women’s
political participation in Taiwan.
Taiwan employs a quota system
in which a woman replaces theS

Percentage of female parliament
members403530(%) 2520151050Talwan

Japan

Credit: Rurika Morishita

Women’s empowerment

male candidate with the fewest
votes if no other woman getselected in that electoral district.
Statistically, the percentage ofwomen lawmakers has increased.
The adoption of this systemrepresents
Taiwan’s
activeattitude toward further women’s
rights and gender equality.

Infrastructure upgrade

On March 24, 2017,
Taiwan’s
government
announced it would
carry out a massive infrastructuredevelopment plan that would cost
about 3 trillion yen over eightyears. This plan includes five
big building programs, including
development of a green energy
system, upgrading the internet
environment and improving
water resources.
Why did the government
decide to implement this plan at
this time? The answer lies in thedeterioration of infrastructure
across Taiwan. Most of Taiwan’s
infrastructure systems weredeveloped by the Japanese
government during the colonial
period, and they have recently
become increasingly susceptible
to problems caused by theirage. Some Japanese people whohave been to Taiwan will haveexperienced this when they flush
the toilet.
However, this situation is also

true in Japan. Most of Japan’s
infrastructure was developed
during the period of higheconomic growth, which meansin about 10 to 20 years Japan will
face similar difficulties as Taiwandoes now.
With the 2020 Tokyo Olympics
and Paralympics approaching,
the Japanese government should
soon do something to maintainand upgrade the infrastructure
because the threat to our lifelines
is growing faster than weexpected. It won’t be long before
infrastructure failure causes acatastrophe.
Japan can learn various thingsfrom Taiwan.
B y Ay u N o z a k i , R u r i k aMorishita, Miki Kanai, Kurumi
Namai

Get a haircut and donate your hair to a worthy cause

Credit: Moe Shimada

ix students in our classparticipated in a hairdonation campaign in which
donated hair is used to make wigs
for children aged under 18 whose
hair has fallen out while they
undergo cancer treatment. Someof the six students already had
long hair; others grew their hairespecially for the campaign.
The participants sent theirThis 30-centimeter ruler shows how longthe cut hair is.

hair to Japan Hair Donation &Charity (JHD&C), the nonprofit
organization
managing
thecampaign. The minimum lengthof hair needed to make a wig
is 31centimeters (see photoaccompanying
thisarticle).
Anybody can donate their hair,even if it is colored, frizzy or hasa permanent wave. A wig madewith artificial hair looks unnaturalwhen blown by the wind. On theother hand, a human hair wig isnatural, even when the wind isstrong. According to JHD&C,
the organization had given wigs
to 189 recipients as of September
13, 2017.
According to our research,most students at our school feel
it is difficult to keep their hairlonger than the minimum length
needed for a wig. However, one
student who participated in thecampaign said she was excitedwhen she imagined someone
would be pleased to wear a wig
made of her hair. In most cases,

when you have a haircut, the hairis thrown away. The campaign
ensures this hair is used to makesomeone smile.
In an interview, one student
told us, “When I read an article
about these hair donations forthe first time, I was impressed. I
had never thought about donating
my hair. What a nice idea! You
can help people who need yourhair, and it doesn’t cost anything.
After I decided to donate my hair,
I found myself taking care of myhair more than before. It is like a‘donation relay’ and I am looking
forward to passing the baton, myhope, to the next runner.”
This campaign has not been
widely publicized. We hopemore people will learn about thecampaign and participate in it somore children can get wigs.
By Moe Shimada, Miwa
Shimizu, Mina Someya, Haruka
Takei

RANchi TIMES
Published by a group of 40 studentsof Ochanomizu University SeniorHigh School, a national highschool in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo, incooperation with the not-for-profit
Global Education Information Center(GEIC) and The Japan News.
Publisher: Ochanomizu University
Senior High School
Project Supervisor: Takashi
Hatakeyama
Project Coordinator: Junji Sakurai(GEIC)
Editor: Minaho Kokubun
Assistant Editors: Yumemi Ishihara,Hikaru Iwasaki, Kotomi Sakuma
Contributing Editors: Ayano
Usukura, Yumiko Mori
(J-Proze Co., Ltd.)
Staff Writers: Minaho Kokubun,
Yumemi Ishihara, Hikaru Iwasaki,
Kotomi Sakuma
Contact: 2-1-1 Otsuka, Bunkyo
Ward, Tokyo, Japan 112-0012
URL: http://www.fz.ocha.ac.jp/fk/