A very special Thank you to GOConnect
For all of your support from day one of meeting you. Especially around the promotion of the FUNraiser to the Digital Citizens who follow your work.
Thank you Robert Walters Japan
We truly appreciate your continued support. We had a chance to visit with our Ambassadors who explained how meeting YouMeWe when they were teenagers helped shape their futures. Also, how it has come full circle as they too are teaching skills sets in the homes themselves.
Thank you AWS!
We express our sincere gratitude to Amazon Web Services (AWS) ID&E Innovation Fund for their grant, ensuring YouMeWe continues empowering kids all over Japan, Brazil, and the Philippines.
This grant allows us to continue our mission to make a positive social impact.
We also would like to thank supervisory board member Francesco Frova for helping us with all the steps and introducing us to the AWS fund.
Your donation is an investment in the future of our community, and we are honored to have your support.
Please stay tuned for more updates!
YouMeWe Team.
Move for Mental Health: Tokyo Tower Climb 2023 for TELL
For many years we have kept a close relationship with TELL due to the needs of the aged out youth and their mental health.
We do not know if they reach out to them but as an asset of the community, we make sure they know they are not alone and especially if things get to be more than one can handle on their own..
We also held a video series with the staff of the homes and professionals at TELL to explain the importance of their roles as caregivers for the children, many of whom have suffered trauma.
Life Connection at Lake Yamanaka with St.Joseph's children
We visited Salesforce who created Love Letter Flashcards which were then gifted to the children at St.Francis.
We had over 12 children (champions) and just as many adults join us at Lake Yamanaka to firstly take a bike ride around the lake with the children and then introduced them to the many skill sets at YouMeWe which the younger children have not seen since COVID.
The volunteers worked with the kids, rode bikes, ate ice cream and then after a BBQ we sat and talked to the kids about our careers to inspire them to have their own dreams.
YouMeWe Volunteer (Diplomats) comments:
" Thank you for letting me join. It was such a precious experience."
"It was a lot of fun"
"Thank you for letting us be a part of this"
After breakfast on Sunday, we headed to a mochi rice field for each child paired with an adult cut down the rice stalks which were hung for drying and this was followed by a bento lunch before heading home. Another great experience to see how challenging it is to get rice on the table.
Life Connection with Amazonians of Amazon Japan and champions of Matsubaen
We held a futsal tournament with the champions of Matsubaen.
Some children who are six years old had just arrived a week before at Matsubaen and had their first volunteer event on the Futsal court.
Amazonians sat with the kids as there were many matches over 2 hours followed by a lunch with the children who get to choose what they want to eat which is a special treat.
We then visited Amazon Japan offices who hosted IFCA (International Foster Care Alliance) to discuss Permanency Packs for the kids who age out of the homes and YouMeWe received a donation and 30 backpacks which have been sent to various homes in Japan.
Salesforce
Thank you Salesforce Professionals for making Love Letter flashcards for the children in the home we support!
Thank you CityFootball Group
They were aware that for their games in Japan, there would be some prize money for Man of the Match awards in their games against Yokohama Marinos and Bayern Munich, kindly donated by Docomo and Meji Yasuda.
Unbeknownst to YouMeWe, we were selected to be a shared recipient of a donation of the prize money, should a Manchester City player be awarded the man of the match in the game against Bayern Munich.
They are pleased that Bernardo Silva was awarded Man of the Match in this game.
Thank you Amazon Web Services (AWS)
We want to express our sincere gratitude for the donation.
Your generous support has been invaluable to our organization, it ensures that we can continue our journey of helping kids in Japan, Brazil, and the Philippines.
We cannot do what we do without the help of donors and companies in the community.
We all have a role to play in addressing the systemic challenges that underrepresented groups have historically faced. Amazon Web Services (AWS) understands the importance of providing passionate employees with the opportunity to do just that. The AWS Innovation Fund is a micro-grant program that awards funding to employees seeking to make a positive impact on racial and ethnic groups, people with physical and cognitive disabilities, the LGBTQIA+ community, veterans, women, and any intersection thereof by partnering with social impact organizations.
If you want to learn more please check: https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/aws/how-aws-is-helping-its-employees-positively-impact-their-communities
Thank you Salesforce
A big thank you to Salesforce for making Love Letter flashcards for the children in the home we support
https://lovelettersliteracy.org/
We have shipped to all the homes from our latest poll who have expressed interest in learning English.
Friday: A day in the life of YouMeWe NPO
Friday
Life Connection: Symposium in Nagoya for Abusive parent training
We visited Nagoya for their workshop of groups focused on retraining of abusive parents or the preventative training. They were able to obtain over 40,000 signatures to influence the government to make the training policy.
The founder of Youkikai father is in his 90s and one of the first foster care fathers in Nagoya. Over the course of decades, he has housed and raised over 50 children in addition to his own.
Currently in Nagoya, all foster parents have formed a group where they meet once a month as a support group for each other.
YouMeWe has supported some of the family’s with laptops as the youth are in school and flourish with the tools received in coding and their school work. We also have Life Connection Events like when Balloon Circus visited.
In addition to YouMeWe’s support Delinian, the group company of Institutional Investor has donated funds to Youkikai to work towards developing a Social Impact Bond where we can expand the work of Youkikai and reunite more children with their rehabilitated parents.
Over 3,000,000 children live in poverty in Japan as do most of the single parents. As if they are floating down the “river of poverty” from the mountain, we have been able to save 33,000 into orphanages and 14,000 into Foster Care but needless to say there are still 2,953,000 children continuing down the river.
205,029 child abuse cases reported last year up from 1,500 when the law required they be reporting in 1990.
The children protection center was built directly across the street from Youkikai’s headquarters in Nagoya. You can hear the young children sometimes too young to understand screaming “MA! MA! Why?” wondering where she is or why they have been detained here.
YouMeWe’s founder Michael Clemons visited Nagoya in 1989 for the first time when he came to Japan. His roommate in college mother is Japanese and father is American. His grandmother lived in Nagoya so on the first day of OBON, we stayed for several days.
In the morning she would be awake and grilling fat slices of toast on a griddle for the grandchildren when they woke but divided by language, she sat down in front of him and started to say “ka ki ku ke ko; ma mi mu me mo; sa shi su se so; ta chi tsu te to” in exchange once he realized what she was doing,, he would say the alphabet and she would repeat each letter after him.
Years later, back in the US when Apple computers came out with Japanese font, he thought that simply writing in English, it would translate to Japanese so wrote an 8 page letter thanking her for the visit and an update on what he was doing.
The 8 page letter of nonsense was received and taking from home to home trying to decipher the pages. Was it English sounded out in Hiragana? Was it something else?
Years later the American Chamber of Commerce was having their 25th anniversary of the walkathon and planned to raise 25,000,000 JPY that year. The proceeds were to also go to the then NPO Michael was managing. Though in the end the funds were raised the board of the NPO declined to take the funds so this became the seed for the CCF Community Children’s Fund which provides scholarships to orphaned children in the community.
Yearly YouMeWe meets with the scholars and aside from scholarships we are able to provide to some of the students from the Mark Bell scholarship, YouMeWe provides laptops to all of them as they start their careers in junior college or university.
Last year on children’s day, one of the 19 year old foster sons of the Youkikai founder took him to lunch on a Friday. He was now working and had bought his first car. He treated the foster father for the first time and thanked him for all the support he had given him over the years. He admitted that he had been bad but wanted to do good going forward.
The father was very proud of the day and the meal which was probably the only meal they had shared alone over the years as there are usually 25 people to feed at their home daily.
The next day at a symposium, the father received a phone call that the boy had been at a river with his friends for a BBQ and jumped in to swim. This river is notoriously dangerous and the boy’s body washed up downstream.
Michael was out of the country at the time and received the news from Dan, one of the teachers. Not knowing which of the boys it was until much later.
When Michael returned to Japan, he made the journey after the funeral and after the ceremonies. Met at the station. Bowed to the father and hugged him. He said to a colleague that was the only hug he had received during the entire ordeal.
Michael recalled how proud the boy was of himself and how after one of the visits when the boy had graduated from high school, the boy checked his phone for the weather forecast for him and as he drove away the boy waved the entire time until the car was blocks away and out of site.
Today the boys biological mother joins the 25 people for meals as she is alone otherwise.
Wednesday, 16th August Day in the life of YouMeWe NPO
Wednesday
Sendai
We visited the baby home we did a toy drive for last Christmas. After many years of planning, they have opened a new facility and have asked for our help making an appeal to groups who can think of ways to help cover the rooftop so they babies are safe playing in that area.
This home houses babies from 0-6 years old. While they can run free on the rooftop fenced space, the chances of them hitting their head or falling down on the hard pavement is high.
We will be reaching out to CSR departments of donor companies and local volunteers for ideas.
Thursday: A day in the life of YouMeWe NPO
Thursday
Home visit: Tokyo Katei Gakko
We visited Tokyo Katei Gakko for the first time since they opened their new building. It was amazing to see. Not only the design but the concept and how the entrance to the living quarters is separate from the office entrance so they feel as though they are coming home.
They ring the doorbell and the staff buzz them into the building. Each floor has separate family pods and are in different colors so they feel unique. The kitchen is open planning so they can talk with the kids as they cook the meals.
The rooftop has a garden where the kids can play our run around.
While Tōkyō Katei Gakko has been attending DAA Designing Artists Academy since 2008 they are more keen to have us come share meals with the children and get to know them this way than skills training sessions which come and go.
The leadership group is in discussions on when we are able to start this arrangement so we are looking forward to this.
They also feel the kids should be volunteering in the community therefore we are looking at further collaboration with other NPOs like HandsON Tokyo and/or Second Harvest.
Teaching online lessons in Wakamatsu Ryo
Everyone at YOUMEWE does their best to support the homes around Japan. On Thursdays and sometimes Fridays we teach programming lessons at Wakamatsu Ryo. We teach on demand when the staff needs us. On days when school ends early or when the rainy weather keeps the kids indoors. The lessons can last from an hour to three hours depending on what the staff need that day. We teach programming in a fun free form way where the kids have total control over what they make. The kids have made amazing programs and games over the years. Come rain or shine YOUMEWE will be here to support these kids when they need us.
Wednesday: A day in the life of YouMeWe NPO
Wednesday
DAA Salon: mural making and portraits
We visited St. Josephs for the day to focus on a fun day of art, photography, and fun. Volunteers and interns witnessed firsthand the power of art, camaraderie, and technology in fostering an environment of positivity and growth. From mural making to instant portrait photography, and a delightful pizza party to tech-driven playtime, the day was a heartwarming testament to the importance of human connection and self-expression.
Our first activity of the day was mural making – a collaborative endeavor that brought together children of all ages. Armed with brushes, paint, and an array of colors, we set out to transform a large panels of blank paper into a masterpiece. It was inspiring to see how each young child's unique perspective came to life through their strokes of pens and splashes of paint. The mural became a tapestry of stories, dreams, and creativity, reminding us that art is a universal language that transcends age and background.
After the creative burst of mural making, it was time to fuel our energies with a delicious pizza party. What made this gathering special was that it wasn't just confined to a single age group from the home – it was an open invitation to any children who wished to join. The aroma of freshly baked pizza filled the air as the volunteers and children formed connections over this shared meal. Laughter resonated throughout the room as individuals from diverse walks of life came together, building bonds that even transcended the confines of language.
While waiting for the photographer to arrive, the children were given time to engage with an array of tech toys and programming games. The room buzzed with excitement as they delved into interactive experiences that merged entertainment with learning. This segment of the day highlighted the importance of striking a balance between traditional activities and modern innovations, providing the children with an opportunity to explore their interests and potential in the digital world.
Next, it was time for an activity that combined nostalgia with modern-day fascination – instant portrait photography using a vintage film camera. The excitement was palpable as each participant had the chance to step in front of the lens and strike a pose. Many of the children did not have a tangible photo of themselves so this was a precious experience. The anticipation of seeing the photograph develop added an element of suspense and wonder to the experience. Participants could choose between solo shots or group photos, and afterward, they were handed their images to decorate as they pleased. It was heartening to see the delight on their faces as they held their tangible memories with their best friends and members of the YouMeWe team.
Leaving the group home that evening, I couldn't help but feel profoundly moved by the experiences of the day. The activities we shared, from mural making to instant photography, highlighted the human need for self-expression, connection, and the simple joy of creativity. As we navigated through our busy lives, the day at the group home served as a reminder that sometimes, the most meaningful moments arise when we pause to engage with our fellow humans in genuine, authentic ways. This day went swimmingly compared to the minecraft night which was a very rewarding experience which gave us all the motivation as to why we do what we do. Taking the time to connect, create, and share can make a world of difference – not only for those we interact with but for our own well-being and sense of fulfillment as well.
A day in the life of YouMeWe NPO: Tuesday
Tuesday
DAA Salon: Video making
We returned to St. Francis the next day with all of our camera/video equipment, ready to begin the video editing experience.
When we arrived, the children were eager to check out all of the cameras and explore their own filming abilities. After spending the first couple of minutes taking test shots of items around the room, the children then got settled and we divided up teams so that there was an intern/volunteer for every three children or so.
Each team had a couple different areas around the home and their neighborhood to film - the goal being to have the kids film areas of interest and describe them in the video. These were all areas that the children were familiar with and it was great to see them show off their favorite spots to the camera and connect with the volunteers.
Some of the kids had a blast catching critters in the backyard. Another group paid a visit to a very cute dog.
After an hour or so, all of the groups met back up and had some time to reconnect and let the kids share with each other the videos that they took. Meanwhile, the volunteers and interns worked to get all of the content uploaded and reorganize the materials.
A day in the life of YouMeWe: Monday
Monday
Minecraft
In the morning we have our Monday Kickoff Meeting. Every Monday we have a kickoff meeting where the team joins from all over the world to talk about our TOP 3 Focus items for the week and then Clubhouse on Wednesdays for all volunteers and team members to join to hear of upcoming events. Friday Close is when we discuss our Top 3 Wins; what went wrong, what to improve, and what to keep doing more of.
6:30 pm
We visited St.Francis. Things are not always as smooth as we hope. We were continuing with the effort to get the kids Minecraft accounts. This was being done remotely by our Ambassador Arata who was going through step by step how to set up an email account in Gmail which was required in order to set up a Microsoft account for Minecraft.
The email accounts all showed up in English so we had 10 kids and 6 volunteers quickly moving to change the settings from English to Japanese.
The shared screen was not as vivid as we needed it to be so Arata had to change his background so we could see what he was showing us.
Then when we started on the next step, a code was being sent to the first account so we had to go back to that account and for those falling behind, they were really falling behind at this point.
Then the students became restless as ten-year-old boys and girls tend to be.
As they started to run around, we were going computer by computer to check the settings.
Just as we reached a critical point, two of the brothers had been fighting, one ran for his life out of the room and the other lay on the ground holding his head. So, quickly I go from tech person to dad and check if he is bleeding. Put my hand through his hair and out of his eyes and then realize he is bleeding from his gums. His tooth had been hit.
Into the sink area washing his mouth out, telling him to hold the paper towel on the gums until it stops bleeding. The tooth does not appear loose.
Just then another boy has a nosebleed. The heat or whatever they have been up to is causing havoc.
I tell him to put the towel up to his nose and put his head back and sit down.
In the end, everyone had accounts set up but the original email accounts set up for them have to be taken down as a matter of urgency as the kids are not allowed to have their own email accounts in case they try to reach their parents from whom they are estranged.
We go home after one hour and 30 minutes which feels like 8 hours. Minecraft is on the back burner until we finish with the video project starting tomorrow where the kids are using the audio and visual equipment we purchased for video making and editing. They are making a video about St.Francis from their perspective and will edit and show it in September with all of their art projects from the summer to the teachers, nuns, and supporters.
Goodnight.
Open Positions
YouMeWe is an organization driven by a deep sense of purpose, committed to creating positive change and leaving a lasting impact on the next generation. With a range of open positions, including Fund Activist Office, Chief Digital Officer, Operations Manager, Volunteer Success Coordinator, Fundraising Manager, Project Manager, Home Coordinator, and Branding and Marketing specialists, there is a place for diverse passions to contribute to a life-changing organization. Join YouMeWe and be part of empowering Japanese youth in group homes and foster care and creating a brighter future for these children and young adults. Take the first step by applying for one of these open positions at YouMeWe today!
Chief Digital Officer:
Amplify our impact by implementing the use of technology in homes that may be hesitant due to risks to the children's security
Examples: Microsoft Jiritsu and Digital Citizens
Operations Manager:
Optimize processes and ensure seamless operations as an Operations Manager. Your problem-solving skills will contribute to our overall efficiency.
Volunteer Success Coordinator:
Empower and support our invaluable volunteers as the Volunteer Success Coordinator. Recruit, train, and motivate volunteers to drive project success.
Fund Activist Office:
Organizing activities for gathering donations from individuals, companies, and foundations.
Fundraising:
Gathering donations as well as visiting donors periodically to tell them how their donations were spent on behalf of digital citizens.
Project Manager:
Supervise all digital citizens group programs and be responsible for handling of volunteers as a full-time employee.
Homes Coordinator:
Coordinate with home staff to create a schedule for visits and events
Maintain communication with homes and work to expand our outreach
Branding and Marketing Specialist:
Strategize how to establish contact with homes by establishing the Digital Citizens brand via our mission statement, slogan, and visual identity
Produce promotional material to reinforce focus to establish the reliability of the program
Monitor and delegate updates of the website and social media
New Intern Grace Carson
Hi Everyone! My name is Grace Carson, and I am currently a rising senior at the University Of Oregon. I am majoring in Human Physiology and Anatomy with a minor in Chemistry and Sociology. I have plans to become a Physicians Associate after obtaining my undergraduate degree and hope to begin my career at Planned Parenthood. I am very passionate about helping the next generation become excited about science and technology. I am grateful to have the opportunity to work with children in foster care as well as the amazing team here at YouMeWe!
New Intern Ingrid Lam
Hi everyone! My name is Ingrid Lam and I study Psychology at Durham University with a placement year doing social research in the UK Civil Service. So far, It has been very fulfilling working with YouMeWe on the basis of my Laidlaw Scholarship in Research and Leadership and I look forward to helping more in any way I can to benefit underprivileged children in the local community!
Thank you Salesforce!
We would like to give a special thanks to Salesforce for gifting us with handmade alphabet packets from their recent volunteer event with Love Letters for Literacy, a global nonprofit that strives to remove barriers to literacy and educational success for lower-income children.
We will distribute the literacy packets to the homes, providing an opportunity for the children to learn the letters of the alphabet in a fun and easy way!
Here at YouMeWe, we have a mission to support local students from institutionalized homes by giving them access to resources and opportunities that will help them reach their full potential. One of the core skills we focus on is Communication, which we currently teach through language lessons, writing programs, and cultural exchange. We are excited to continue developing this core skill by teaching kids the alphabet from a young age!
