Amenity 2000 Association
September 2015

Trust Youth Centre
Campaign to support the next generation

Our AimOur property:
The Vories Rokko
Mountain Lodge inKobe was built in 1932
designed by an
American architect,
William Merrell
Vories, who wasresponsible for theconstruction of many
European stylebuildings throughout
Japan in the early 20thcentury. The property
was designated a‘Heritage of Industrial
Modernisation’ in 2007
and is currently
managed by theAmenity 2000
Association and itsmembers.

In Japan, there has yet to bea popular ‘heritage
movement’ like that in theUK. Voluntary participationin National Trust activities
and the importance ofprotecting historicalbuildings has yet to gain
wide public awareness.

We feel it is our duty toprevent the irreversible lossof such treasures to ourculture and preserve heritage
sites wherever possible at acommunity level. It is ourambition to support thepreservation of the past for
future generations.

At Amenity 2000
Association, we believe thatJapan’s heritage consists ofan extremely diverse rangeof buildings and areas ofnatural beauty.

This will be achieved byengaging young people
through our Trust Youth(TY) Centre to promote thedevelopment of a National
Trust movement, and toOur Approachadvocate wider
accessibility to heritage
sites by work at ourproperty in Kobe.
We aim to expand our TY
Centre, to use heritage as aplatform to engage in crosscultural and intergenerational exchange.
In doing so, we aim tosecure wider appreciation
for the social andeducational benefits ofactive participation with thehistorical and naturalenvironment.

The Amenity 2000 Association started the Trust Youth Centre (TYC) campaign in2013 to target students of colleges and universities in Japan and abroad. We aim toensure that students have the chance to develop personally and professionally byempowering them to have an active role in our organisation. By joining the TYC:

・ Students can become full Amenity 2000 Association members free of charge.
・ They are provided with free admission to our seminars, exhibitions and events.
・ They gain access to our network of trust members from a variety of professional
backgrounds.
・ They are encouraged to gain skills by working as volunteers at our property, theVories Rokko Mountain Lodge in Kobe.
・ They are given the opportunity to assist in promotion of our events, organise andplan activities and projects, such as the Working Holiday programme.

TheVories

Activities of current TYC students
Hannah Eastham

Sho Tanaka

Masako Yamamoto

Hannah met Amenity 2000 in2011 when working in Japanas an English teacher. After
gaining a qualification in
heritage and museums, shereturned to Kobe in 2014
through a fund from theUniversity of Cambridge
Museum of Archaeology andAnthropology. She joined theTYC and worked as volunteer
staff at the Vories Lodge
whilst home-staying for a few
months through our support.
She intends to work in Japanas a researcher, and tocontinue assisting Amenity
2000 to facilitate exchange
between the UK and Japan.

Sho is an undergraduate at
Kwansei Gakuin University
based near Kobe. He joined
the TYC and worked as avolunteer on manyoccasions. He wasparticularly involved in theplanning and execution of
our Working Holiday
project. Recently, he gained
work experience
volunteering in Kenya and is
now taking time away fromuniversity as a teacher in The
Philippines supported by The
Japan Foundation to promote
Japanese culture abroad. It is
his ambition to work for an
NGO in the future.

As a PhD student at the Tokyo
Institute of Technology,
Masako undertook courses in
Social Engineering and has
developed an interest in thevalue of public participation at
heritage sites. She is now
working to finish a doctoral
dissertation on the theme ofthe UK National Trust and iscurrently a visiting research
student at University College
London where she has beenable to interview a member ofINTO staff and National Trust
property managers. She aims
to use this research to assist
the growth of the National
Trust movement in Japan.

Hannah Eastham and Masako Yamamoto will join the INTO Conference inCambridge in September 2015 where they hope to be able to share their experienceof Amenity 2000 and discuss their current work with other participants.

Relevance for INTO members
Amenity 2000 is a local-level, independently run NPO based in Japan which is inspired by the philosophy andprinciples of the UK National Trust. We are proud of the fact that our activities are almost entirely run by ourvolunteer members and feel that our heritage property is a good example of grassroots, community-basedmanagement. Although the Trust Youth Centre is still in the early stage of development, we aim to increaseparticipation and membership from students and younger volunteers; we believe that supporting them to develop
the skills to become future leaders should be at the forefront of our work. As we hope that over time we caneventually build our organisational capacity and develop a stronger platform to officially launch the Trust YouthCentre on a wider scale, we ask for help and support to achieve this ambition. We look forward to sharing bestpractice examples and experiences with other INTO members.

Amenity 2000 Contact Information
Tel: +88(0798)65f-4303

Address: 3-20 Kita-showa cho, Nishinomiya City, Hyogo, Japan.

E mail:soshisha@f6.dion.ne.jp

Webpage: http://homepage3.nifty.com/amenity2000/