To watch the full interview on YouTube, click here. Interview starts at [05:00]
Subscribe to the show in your favourite podcast player here: Apple Podcasts/Spotify/Stitcher/Google Podcasts
Full transcript follows.
Megumi Ishimoto realised one day when she was 32 that she couldn’t keep living her part time worker lifestyle. This set her on a journey to pursue continuing education through night school and to finish not only her university degree, but also a masters degree while working full time for a company. Having studied social enterprise, she was ready for the events of the triple disaster in Tohoku, Japan on March 11th, 2011. She left her position and decided to travel to Tohoku to volunteer any way she could. This set off the chain of events which led to the creation of Women’s Eye, a non-profit based in Minamisanriku that is still empowering women leaders in Tohoku, 10 years on.
In this episode you’ll hear:
- How Megumi transformed herself from part-time worker to university student through night school
- How she got her first taste of CSR through a Masters degree in social enterprise and then experience with her company’s CSR community projects
- How the 3.11 triple disaster in Tohoku became Megumi’s call to action
- The problems she witnessed in Tohoku for women living in evacuations centres
- The importance of curated training for women to help grow their leadership skills, confidence
- How Women’s Eye has built critical networks to support women-led entrepreneurship and social impact projects in their own communities
About Megumi:
Megumi Ishimoto is the Executive Director and co-Founder of NPO Women’s Eye (WE), based in Miyagi Prefecture, supporting women who are involved in post-disaster community building and reconstruction in the Tohoku region. Megumi was born in Wakayama and started working in Osaka with only a high school diploma. After graduating from university and obtaining her masters while also working full time, she started volunteering in Tohoku shortly after the triple disaster in March 2011. From her volunteer experience she started a non-profit organization in Tohoku supporting women. In 2016 she created specially curated leadership training for women called “Grassroots Academy Tohoku,” which has helped women to take the next steps in their role as community leaders across the disaster affected region.
Connect with Megumi:
https://www.facebook.com/Womenseye20130604/
Connect with Jackie:
Website: https://en-joi.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackie-f-steele-phd/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/enjoidiversityandinnovation
https://www.facebook.com/jackiefsteelephd Instagram: www.instagram.com/enjoi_diversity_innovation/
Transcript:
Welcome to Diversity rocks innovation! Volume Seven.
My name is Jackie Steele. I’m a long time Canadian political scientist living and working in Japan and also the CEO and founder of enjoi Diversity and Innovation. enjoi, always that Japan based a global facing business, working in English and Japanese and French sometimes. And we’re committed to writing research based policy expertise and evidence-based diversity equity and innovation strategy to support companies.
We truly believe. And we know that diversity rocks innovation. And so this livestream is going to shine a spotlight on the beautiful diversity of all of the enjoi DNI thought partners who are making individual efforts to bring inclusion, diversity, positive environments, and gender equal leadership into the world in their own unique way.
So through this live stream in particular, we are engaging in what we call thought, partnering out loud. And I learned about this practice from a leadership coach in Seattle named Izumi Yamoto. And I really, it really stuck with me when she talked to me about this and she said, oh, Jackie, if ever, you want to thought partner.
And it really struck me as such an important lifelong learning practice that we can use as adults and as children and in all ages, and to build solidarity with others and help them roll their projects forward in their thinking forward. And for me as a business, as a feminist business, committed to further furthering democratic equality and a reciprocal giving of ourselves, respect for differences across leaders and stakeholders.
This is a key practice that we are using for the live stream and we hope it spreads across Japan and the Asia Pacific. So each week I invite one guest and our goal is to show up without our business cards, without any hierarchies or sempai-kohai relationships. And we’re just humans thought partnering out loud ,in defiance of all of the social hierarchies that really trap a lot of our identities on the day to day living basis of how we experience others sometimes in a negative way. So today we’re going to enjoy a horizontal relationship. We’ll enjoy learning about each other’s diversities and our radical individuality, and how that really makes for a collegial exchange of expertise, worldviews, identities, and experiences that can really change the world.
I am so pleased to introduce today’s guest. She figures among the women who I’m featuring in our special series in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the triple disaster that hit Tohoku Japan on March 11th, 2011. We remember it all too well. For me, it was an experience in Northern Sendai living in a relationship with a seven month old child, and then trying to figure out what to do and how to survive for the next month and two months and whatnot and struggling with how to fit in with the diversity of my own family formation at that time.
And from that I started thinking about, I had been working on research and law reform from a feminist perspective and around diversity and women’s inclusion, but I never thought about disaster risk. And emergency management and that sort of kicked off my last 10 years of research. And I was so honored to be able to partner with Megumi Ishimoto here today for a participatory action research project that we began in 2015 with her organization called NPO Women’s Eye. And so Megumi, welcome to Diversity rocks innovation! Thank you for being here today.
Megumi: Oh, thank you for inviting me, Jackie. I’m so happy to talk to you today.
Jackie: It’s going to be a fun conversation. I’m sure there’s so many things for us to relive it, to go back over into this. And this volume of Diversity rocks innovation! and I guess what I’ll maybe encourage to start, if you could.
I know there’s a lot of things we’ve talked about in the last five years. It feels like longer than that, that we’ve known each other given all the times that we’ve come together for collaboration. But for those who maybe don’t know as much about you, maybe you could start with introducing, what is core to who you are, who was mega Mishi, Moto.
And let’s think about your journey, pre 3-11, pre events of 3-11. And we will get into those maybe first we can start out with, where did you come from? Where have you lived and been raised and how do you identify your core identities and your core values?
Megumi: Wow, that’s a great question because, I was always asked, where were you at the time of the 3-11. And what did you do after the 3-11?
So I never really was asked before that. I’m from Wakayama Prefecture. I was born in a very small “inaka” countryside and grew up there. I liked the music. America and pop rock, and I had several milestones that really let me hear who I am right now. One of the important things was when I was 32 years old I was working in Osaka city, I was a high school graduate. Never really went to university and also was working as a temporary contract worker. I wasn’t married. I was single.
And I was enjoying drinking a lot of wine. But one day I thought, oh my God, what’s going to happen after 10 years to me working as a temporary worker, will I still have a job and will I be alone? Will I be, with no good education? I was okay. I was a high school graduate, but I always had a complex.
So one day I decided to educate myself. I started to take a correspondence college class while I was working full time. And then I switched to night university. And after I graduated university, it took me five years. It was hard, studying and having a full time job, but still I enjoyed it very much.
And before that, I was always thinking about myself. I was worried about myself, but then after I started I felt like I finally got a space in my heart that allowed me to think about something else. So I started to see what’s happening in the world. In society, in the community.
And then I was working at an American company and first I was working part time, then people around me, including my boss, were watching what I was doing, studying and working hard. Then I became a contract worker. It was a bit better. A better situation than the part time job.
Finally I was promoted to a full-time worker. So I started to get involved in a CSR project. And that really made me think about the issues around me. I was just very lucky to have this opportunity to work with a project called Kids International, where I’m working with high school students living in orphanages.
So I met many different kinds of high school students, it was very difficult for them to think about their future. Like I was. But more in a severe situation because many of them said that they just don’t believe the adults or they think there is no future, really, because they don’t have any family or things like that.
So I really started to think, because that was the CSR project, I’ve really started to think what a CSR project can do. This could impact people, life and the community and the social issues.
Jackie: And it seems so fascinating that you, in some ways you graduated out of high school in a sort of a normal upbringing with your two parents present and then went into working part time, gradually decided maybe that wasn’t going to help you long term.
So you started thinking about how you can support your life and your career opportunities, and then thought about reeducation. It’s not common. I think you were one of the first people I met, who said you had gone back to do university as what we would call in Canada, sometimes a mature student.
And so when adults go back to retrain, if you will, and get university degrees later in life you don’t really hear about that much in Japan. And so you were one of the first people. I went, wow, that’s so fascinating that you thought to do that. And then you decided to do that. And then you did it.
You just had the courage to just say I’m going to be in these courses with these individuals who might be young. 10 years my junior in terms of age, and you’re at a different stage in life, but you just thought if you want to get an education degree while you work, that was your choice.
So then to think how much empathy you must’ve had for these high school students. When they’re also wondering about their future already, they haven’t even graduated yet. And they’re already worried about their futures because they don’t have a family. They don’t have parents to look out for them and help them.
You were obviously in the right place at the right time to be the sort of mentor, if you will, to understand maybe what they were going through and then to help them think through how they could think about their life in a positive way, that gives them hope. So how did that allow you a chance to, in some ways, pay forward your own way?
Megumi: Oh, yes. Right after the project, one of the kids, a high school student, asked me that. One of the projects was teaching them English and also the culture. Japanese culture as well. And she had told me that she wanted to keep studying English. And also she didn’t think she could go to a higher education, but she started to think maybe she has an opportunity.
So I did mentoring with her. I didn’t even know the name of the mentoring back then. But, I met her once a month and I gave her homework and English and talked about how her life is and how my life is. And I think it’s like two years or so. And I told her that we found a personal supporter who will pay for her college tuition.
And she got into college then. She decided that she wants to do more. And she started to have her own dream that she wants to work for a travel agency so she could travel the world. And then she also transferred to university and she did graduate from the university. And she got a job in a travel agency and, oh, I guess I did the more than two years mentoring, but I saw her in a life that’s changing.
And that’s because she met this project. Maybe that’s one of the reasons, but she met this project and she met me and she started this. She saw her potential in herself. Then I saw, wow. Really powerful. And because of this project I decided to do a master’s degree. I thought I would study much more on the CSR projects so that I could contribute.
Jackie: And, I think in some ways we start out and I guess that’s maybe why I think thought partnering is such an amazing practice because I think you can start out with, you’re just holding the space for another person to talk to you about their ideas, to talk through their fears. To talk you through their concerns or anxiety, and you just listen and you can hear their thoughts and you can partner back to them and say: Have you thought about this?
Or what do you think about that? And just even that exchange of having the space of somebody who can be a sounding board, who has your back, who’s on your team and really wants the best for you, and just wants to help you move your ideas forward. And I know we often call that coaching or we call that mentoring.
But I think at a very baseline, basic level, even without those formal terms or names or certifications, I think thought partnering can be much more, one-on-one just horizontality. Of supporting each other in, thinking out loud and developing our ideas about what we want to do for ourselves.
And how do we get from point A to point B? And I think if you can imagine that, that young teenage girl didn’t have parents to do that thinking with or to go through that with someone who’s older, and can give that kind of sense of feedback and who’s on their team. And if you did that for two years, you were probably one of the most present adults in her life, maybe at that time, really holding space for her.
Megumi: And then, I learned more than she did. So I convinced myself that if we go back to university. I did the five years working and studying, and that was tough for me, but I thought I could do something much more not only for me, but for something for society.
Then I became a very good negotiator that I got to go to to do the Masters. I had to take some classes and I had a full-time job. So I negotiated with my boss. He was a CEO at that time and I was his executive assistant back then.
I negotiated with him, please I would come early. So could I just have one extra hour for lunch break so that I can go to university and have one class and come back. And so I will work overtime as well. And I negotiated with other assistants as well. Please cover me please. And they were all nice. They all helped me. And I was working for GE at that time. I learned so much from the company and from my boss and from my colleagues.
Jackie: Wow, wonderful. One of the things that certainly, I think we’ve been hearing about for 30 years in Japan, as well as other countries, but particularly it’s acute in Japan is the the rigidity around face time, hours in the office and how that works against so many other facets of our life in terms of caregiving responsibilities, of course, but also lifelong learning opportunities to be able to take that, that university class, when it’s offered. And flex work, allowing, for you to, if you’re getting your hours done and you can arrange to have a good, collaborative way of covering each other amongst colleagues, why wouldn’t it be encouraged that here you are improving yourself and bringing more skills to the company, through your studies and your master’s, but sometimes that’s just shut down.
On a procedural basis. We’ll no, your working hours are 8:30 to 6:30. And so there’s no flexibility. And so no, and the answer becomes procedural, n o. And so many women in particular, but also men of course, face these challenges. So you obviously had a very progressive, or more open-minded. They were more flexible and willing to allow you to innovate and have time freedom for yourself to manage your schedule a little bit, to be able to combine these two.
Megumi: I was desperate because I really wanted to do it, but I had to make money as well. So I had to negotiate and I guess people will think that it’s not really possible because I have a full-time job and my time is fixed, but depending on the boss depends on the job.
If you ask, maybe something could be arranged if you can’t do the first wish. Anyway, I got in and that was a very tough three years because I never really imagined how much I had to read.
But then I got another opportunity. I studied more about social enterprise that was quite new back then. And from a CSR social enterprise stand, those are non profit organizations. Because my professor taught me that CSR probably needs a partnership with more Japanese NPO, NGO But, NPO, NGO are still not so much here yet.
And you better study that first. And I thought that’s a great idea. That’s why I started to study nonprofit organizations in Japan, especially fundraising issues and also PR and marketing kind of things. That’s what they should do more. They’re too busy. I know. After 10 years. I was just reading and writing and thought nonprofits they’re really doing a good job, but they just focus so much on the field and they don’t PR or say enough.
And so they should do that more. And now I know how difficult it is.
Jackie: There’s a burnout factor when you’re responsible for fundraising and strategic direction and implementation and mentoring your team all in the same breath, really. Without a huge staff, it’s always a shoestring staff to work with.
Megumi: And then I was lucky to get a small research grant, so that I was able to go to south Thailand for a week or two for my own research. So I visited a Myanmar undocumented immigrant community in south Thailand and visited the nonprofit. They are also Myanmar people who are helping their own people in the community. And I went there. I didn’t know about them. I asked my friend, do you know anyone like any organizer? And she introduced me and I just wrote an email. I want to go there and I really want to do the research. I have this own thing. And then that non-profit replied to me. Okay Megumi, I will pick you up at the airport. That’s the only contact I had. And I was hoping please, someone be there. And yes, I was picked up. It was a very, really good experience for a week or two and with the Myanmar community. The one thing I really learned there is she took me around to two of her schools that they had. They have their own school to teach kids because the community had 3000 people undocumented living in south Thailand.
So they have many kids and not safe jobs because of their status. And many difficulties because of the no insurance health issues. So they were supporting health, providing schools, providing anything to live. And she took me to one place. She told me that this is one of the poorest communities and then visited there and you can’t really say it’s a house, it’s just wood. You can get in there, but if it’s windy. The rain comes in and it’s wet and humid. So I could smell the not nice smell.
And I could hear everyone. It’s a very noisy place. A lot of people are living like that. Kind of a slum. What I learned is that before I was thereI just imagined what the communities are like, and what a great job they’re doing, but I didn’t really know what smells like. What it looks really like and then what I could hear. So to me, it’s important to be there and to feel what it is like.
Jackie: And I think our full body sensory lived experience of something. Of course, it goes so much deeper into understanding and seeing it with our own eyes, having the, what our body also then takes in observation, not just reading about it or knowing it at a cognitive level, but actually experiencing it and experiencing the individuals. And then how much more that resonates with us. And I think it helps us have a window into the lived realities that otherwise we wouldn’t be able to make the next leap of empathy and really feeling a sense of solidarity around, Wow! This is not what I expected. And I can imagine now if we pivot the conversation slightly towards the events of the Great East Japan earthquake tsunami and nuclear meltdown, and so now we’ve got this rich background on your trajectory prior to 3-11 and who you were and what you were pursuing. But then let’s zoom in now to the events of 3-11. You were working in Tokyo, I believe at that time. And how did you, all of the things you’ve just told us now about what you found to be important, obviously, I think enriched your decisions in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake.
So maybe talk us through what you were living and experiencing on 3-11 and then your thought process thereafter.
Megumi: I was in Kanda in Tokyo. I was on the fifth floor of the building that I was working in and it shake so much. Even in Tokyo. So we evacuated and we evacuated to the nearby school ground.
So many people. The people there were watching the building shaking still because of the after shock. And some people started to watch their iPhones. But we couldn’t just move, so we, I think we stayed there like a few hours, then someone started to say, there’s a tsunami coming and there’s news.
And I think we saw that first image of the tsunami on this very small, tiny mobile phone with someone because mine didn’t really work. That’s a bad connection. And then I was with my colleague and she had a small child. And she was so worried. What’s happened to her kid. And she said, Megumi, I really want to go home and really want to pick up my kid at the hoikusho, the daycare.
Because she couldn’t really get any information at all. So we decided to just start walking. We lived in the same direction, so we started to walk. I think it took me three or four, three hours maybe, but I was lucky that I was living in the Tokyo area.
So I was able to go back to my home. But then after I got home, I started watching the TV about what’s happening in Tohoku. And luckily I still had a job working in Tokyo. So I still went to the Kanda office every day and did my work, but then, everyone, I’m sure everyone was just praying Tohoku back then and just crying and was shocked and so worried.
And everyone thought what we could do there. So I was one of them. And back then I already decided to leave a company and to proceed with my next career. That’s totally different from the company job, but, and I had time, I thought. I was still working, but I took a day off and went to Ishinomaki in early April to do the volunteer work and also to be there and see what’s really happening.
And I was really shocked to see the devastation. It also changed my life, the scene, to be there.
Jackie: Like when you said you went to Myanmar, or you mentioned you saw the Myanmar living conditions, when you were there and seeing it. At the grassroots.
And then when you went to Ishinomaki for the first time and really saw it with your own eyes, how did that impact your next decisions?
Megumi: I had to go back to Tokyo but I couldn’t live like before. I couldn’t think like before, after being there and I knew what’s happening in Tohoku from the news on the TV, but it’s just a personal experience that’s really, that was different just to see. As long as I see the devastation continues. I decided to go back to Miyagi Prefecture and do whatever I can. In May I didn’t need to go to the company anymore. So I went to volunteer. My first time was just for a week or maybe a month, but it continued for many years.
Jackie: Did you quit by that point? Did you quit your job so that you could go up and do a month of volunteering? Or how did you arrange that?
Megumi: Actually I told my boss that I will leave my job and I would quit three days before 3-11. And so I was just ready to go. But my first plan was because I studied nonprofits in Japan and also the developing countries and international NGOs
So back then I wanted to work for an international NGO in Asia. I was thinking of going to Bangladesh back then.
Jackie: But little did you know that sort of all of a sudden Tohoku would become decimated by the tsunami to the point where it was now, like in the conditions of a developing country, of having to start from ground zero, rebuilding all of those communities and starting really from scratch. And that was now in your home country, in Tohoku. As a reality, which meant you didn’t maybe didn’t need to go all the way, “waza waza” (deliberately). To go traveling all the way abroad to be immersed in that kind of work, you could actually help at home. So when you decided to go, how did you choose where to end up and where to volunteer?
Megumi: First I was checking any opportunity, any volunteer opportunity. And I was checking all the information and some international NGOs were providing volunteer opportunities, but it was very strict that I had to prepare everything: tent and sleeping bag and all the food and water and everything.
And I had to be there from this date to this date. But it’s exact. But then I was still working, so I still think it’s difficult. And then I was checking and I found the volunteer center RQ citizen support center that was providing an opportunity for anyone like me that was not experienced, but they said to me, he said you can do anything. You can come right now. We provided the opportunity.
So I felt maybe I could go, so I registered. And then I went in early May. That was the start.
Jackie: And fairly soon into your volunteer work. You can maybe describe for us how you became involved and how perhaps you ended up building out the support services for women in particular.
Megumi: We wanted to do something but I had no knowledge or no interest in gender or women’s issues back then.
Jackie: That’s a lot of people that are in that boat and that’s not surprising, but I think it’s interesting. It’s interesting but it’s not surprising.
Megumi: So more than 10 years ago, no knowledge, but then again, I just met the issue. I just saw the issues. Because I just heard so many voices that there are issues, especially for women. So three days after I arrived in the volunteer center the city and the local women’s groups decided to start a women’s support for the evacuation centers and they invited volunteer groups as well. Back then in the volunteer center, there were like more than a hundred or 200 people coming from all over Japan. Some of them are from around the world. They thought it’s good that the city and local women’s group and volunteer center would work for the women’s support in the evacuation center.
And because I told them, in the volunteer center, I told them that, I can be flexible again, stay long. So I don’t have any hope or I don’t have any preference for what kind of work that I do as a volunteer. So they assigned me, Oh Megumi san, can you go to that women’s support project?
That was the start. So we started to visit the evacuation centers in many places all together with the city, their local woman and me, and we are talking together and meeting with the leader of the evacuation centers and meeting with the women living in the evacuation centers and what their needs are.
The local women decided to have a questionnaire to all the evacuation centers only for the women and personal requests about what they need to have. We noticed all the issues, right? It was two, two months after the triple disaster.
So I thought, there must be all the stuff there in the evacuation centers, but yes, there was a lot of stuff, but especially women’s underwear, there are many, but it’s not their size so that they can really use them. And of course the many kinds of products they needed, but it was very difficult for them to speak up.
Jackie: And it’s hard. We take for granted and there’s increasingly different organizations around the world that are speaking up about period shame and menstruation, menstrual support and making sure… New Zealand has decided to have feminine hygiene products and menstrual products available in schools because sometimes even in New Zealand, which is such an advanced country, I guess there’s challenges around, do girls stay home from school and absent themselves because of shame or concerns around period shame.
And if you can imagine a post-disaster context, you’re in an evacuation center and your choice is to go up to any of the men who are the heads of the evacuation center or the leaders of the evacuation center, who pretty much are all men. When you look at the research on what the reality was, evacuation leadership. There really was just an absence, right? Of not enough women in those roles or even in public facing, service roles. So that women could say I don’t really want to have to talk about these private things to the head of the evacuation center. And then what do you do in the absence of having another way to solve that?
And so of course having, and certainly from the research I’ve done on women parliamentarians, women citizens are more likely to go approach an elected official when it’s a woman, because they think that an elected woman is a little bit closer to their reality. And if there’s issues that are sensitive around their reality, that they’re worried a man might not empathize with if it’s a man who’s an elected official, who’s their representative for parliament. They may not go, but we do see a propensity of women to feel a little bit more comfortable to go talk about those issues with a woman elected representative. So we see that at the highest levels for national politics and also for local politics.
So of course, in an evacuation center, being able to voice your reality and your needs and thinking that the person on the other side will be empathetic and will be supportive and we’ll hear your concerns. And understanding them is such an important piece of psychological safety.
Megumi: Exactly. Yes. So my volunteer organization was also providing products, especially for women and when they visited not only the evacuation centers, but there were many houses, the house was there. But still because of no gasoline, the roads were blocked, it was difficult.
They didn’t have any access to food or water or anything they needed. So that volunteer center was driving in many cars and visiting, bringing all this stuff. And they try to make men and women go together. And I thought he was a really good idea until then I hadn’t noticed how important that was.
Jackie: And you’ve now been working with the RQ Volunteer Center and of course, from this was born the NPO Women’s Eye. Did you raise your hand and say I’m still here and I’m still willing to help. And so let’s build something that can be more of a long-term solution, right?
Because there’s a point at which Tohoku was such a tremendously huge event that it’s not like other earthquakes where there’s damage. And then like within a month, you’re back to life as normal. We’re talking, this is going to take a decade or two decades to rebuild. So then building the infrastructure, right?
The societal infrastructure, the NGO organizations, and the kinds of institutional knowledge and the capacity building that then can stay and keep building throughout the next nine years is tremendously important for the next step of rebuilding. So how did you then move to the next level of creating this wonderful NPO that’s really been sustaining women and working with women leaders for 10 years now?
Megumi: For the first month, I was still thinking of going to Bangladesh after Tohoku. But then the leader of the volunteer organization told us, me and other volunteers who are walking for the women’s project, he told me that he has been creating this kind of citizens organization to support in a disaster area since the earthquake in Kobe.
So he did in many areas, including in China as well. And he told me that because of his experience, there is always a need to support women. There’s always women’s issues and he keeps seeing that and this kind of, the huge devastation. He told me that it will take at least a few years and we really need to start a real women’s support center. I mean a women’s support project, not just a project, but we really need to commit. So I asked myself how I feel, do I, what do I do? And then I decided, yes, For the first time I already met so many women in the evacuation centers. And I really thought that we should continue and we need to do more.
And on June 1st, in 2011, we created an organization before Women’s Eye, RQ Women’s Support Centers. I became the, how do you say a sub leader as a position and the leader of the organization became the leader of this women’s organization as well, because everyone knew about him around the area. And no one knew about me though or other volunteers. So that’s how it started.
And so we became our own kind of organization within the organization, not just the project.
Jackie: There’s a succession building, right? Because you later then took on the role of representative director and became the one leading the organization and building that forward with all the responsibility that that entails.
And I remember meeting you in, I guess 2014, just on the lead up to the Third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction that was going to be held in Sendai in March, 2015. And it was going to be this new international agreement around disaster risk reduction. And I had been working and collaborating with Domoto Akiko’s network around trying to do law reform and getting the Japanese national laws to integrate gender and diversity considerations more adequately.
But then also the framework shifted towards the international legal framework. And how do we get that text, that agreement to actually hear the words we need to take women’s leadership seriously. Women’s agency on disaster risk is key to the benefits for all in society. And then how do we think through the diversity point as well?
And I was involved in those conversations when I ran into you. And you were so passionate about building this new, exciting Grassroots Academy program to help train and raise up the young women leaders in Tohoku. That was the beginning of our journey and collaboration. And so maybe you could speak about what have been the biggest successes from your perspective for four years intensely from 2015, till 2019, having these leadership academies three times a year, maybe four times a year.
Also doing two trips abroad internationally. So can you tell us a little bit about what the big takeaways are for you in terms of how you networked young women leaders struggling to rebuild, and then what have you learned through that amazing project?
Megumi: Thank you. So in almost four years, we did, including the first ones, we did 10 times for each training session, but not just one day, usually two to three days. So you have to stay together. I think the network that they got to know each other, they are not alone and they can ask for help or they can talk if they have difficulties or they can look up, like they can always check Facebook or other SNS, they can find a kind of sister hood.
The members that are really working hard or they were recognized, or they ‘re asking for help. So they’re part of this kind of network. Not just a member, but something really warm. They can just say weak things, weakness happens. Always thinking that, I can do it and we should try to do it, but sometimes you are defeated and sometimes you feel lost and we all have that.
And we can share that too. We can show weakness to each other. That’s I think it’s really an important point. And also that we try to create the training as comfortable as possible. And we did it mainly in Japan in Tohoku, in Miyagi, Fukushima, Iwate, in turn. And we chose a very nice venue. One time I was in Fukushima and the house was built for an artist. So it’s so nice. The place is such a beautiful building. It’s so beautiful. It’s so artistic and that kind of place. We always chose, it took us so long to research to find that right place.
But then also the food that we try to find the local organic and really good food for them and the sweets and drinks and everything to welcome them. And I wanted to care for them. The women came for three straight days. There was sometimes not for all, but sometimes it was difficult to convince their family or the surrounding people that they had to go for three days just to take this training trip.
Jackie: And I think we underestimated how much of a big ask that sometimes is in rural Japan, where women are really, in some ways expected to be on call for every member of their family. And they are Oyomesan yaku. The daughter-in-law role within the family and their wifely role, even if they work full time and their mothering role, those three hats alone. And plus they have their own parents that sometimes they’re caring for and elderly, they’ve got like four caregiving roles and sometimes they’re also working full time on top of all of that. And these are young women.
So this is what I found so fascinating about having the opportunity to research and track and follow and learn from these women through the academies that you allowed me to join and be a part of where you’re a researcher, but also as a participant. So that I was one of the circle, not just an external person, trying to observe because that’s part of also, feminist research methods is about, you learn with each other. You don’t just stay objectively on the outside cause that’s not possible. But figuring out that those spaces you were curating for these women were a nourishment for their minds, a nourishment for their hearts, a nourishment for their bodies. And it was a chance to refresh, I think, and just even have a space to breathe and say, wow, for the next two and a half days, I only have to worry about myself. Yeah. Two and a half days out of the year that they get to just actually focus on their needs. What they’d like to eat this morning, what they hope to learn from the day, how they want to spend time in community with other women, young women like them. And like you said, also to be able to share about their vulnerabilities, about their lack of confidence sometimes. about the fact they’re having these problems when they try to move a project forward, and they’re not getting support from the local government or from these different actors who don’t understand and don’t empathize with what they’re trying to build. And getting strategies from other women leaders who say, oh, have you tried that? Have you tried this? We’ll just go around, that person’s a blockage. No, no use convincing them, go around them, try another avenue. And so the ideas and the thought partnering that can organically happen in that space, it’s so powerful. When I went to those academies, I went: I feel like I am experiencing, in North America we talk about the feminist consciousness raising movement that began. And it began in the 1870s. It was just a bunch of women getting together in the kitchen.
They were getting together in the kitchen to talk about what they were experiencing in life and what challenges they were facing. And they were just talking with one another about what they were experiencing and trying to make sense of why they were experiencing what was happening or, feeling maybe disrespected sometimes or not being appreciated or being taken for granted on all of the caregiving fronts.
And so it’s those organic conversations among women sharing with each other that then builds this natural consciousness around, oh, it’s not just me having this experience. There’s just so many of us having this experience. And then you can begin to start wondering and asking why we are having these challenges.
And maybe it is related to structural inequalities that we built into our systems. And it’s not their fault. Until you can come to that realization that it’s not me that’s the problem. I’m not crazy for wanting to try and build more of a child-friendly city in the reconstruction planning. That’s not a crazy idea. That’s a legitimate idea. That’s a real need for women and men and children in the newly rebuilt cities. So why can’t my voice be heard by local bureaucrats or why can’t my ideas be understood and supported.
That’s why I know we knew how difficult it was for them to even come for some of them. I was lucky enough to have a very good team. I couldn’t do it by myself. I have a really good team who are professional trainers and including you, who participated, provided the diversity of ideas and thoughts and the leadership.
Megumi: Also I was so grateful because you know how hard it is for them to come and how high the hurdle is to get there. And also to that, I recognized them. So it means that they’re recognized in their communities as well. And I knew how hard it is to be recognized as a young woman, they don’t call them a leader, but someone who is doing something and that’s not easy in a small community.
I just admire their courage and their actions. They are making a difference in each community. And so that’s the place that the Grassroots Academy was built. And we also grew, because of their voices. Moms can come without any daycare or support system. So yes, that’s right. The first two times we couldn’t do it. So, from the Grassroots Academy in Iwate in 2016, I think we decided to provide a full takuji.
Jackie: On-site caregiving for the children of the participants, right?
Megumi: It was three days. And at night we could all have dinner together. And so that’s how many of them started to join us. With kids and you, too.
Jackie: Yeah. It’s such an important inclusion mechanism, right? It requires a lot of institutional support because you need to hire trained daycare workers. Or “hoikushi” or people who really, you can entrust with the children so that they feel safe bringing their children.
And then it’s a hurdle they don’t have to deal with negotiating on the home front if they say, oh, but I can bring the baby. Then there’s one less argument or one less hurdle to participate. And to have this freedom to come and learn for yourself and for your own development.
And I think that there’s so much, I still want to hear from you. So maybe we can run a little bit longer than I had initially expected today, but I think these are the devils. I always say the devil’s in the details of women’s inequality. And in terms of getting women’s empowerment, the devil’s in the details.
It’s: Do you have an onsite daycare provision? So that these young child rearing women can have those options to participate and don’t feel shut out because of caregiving responsibilities, that might be a challenge. Are there other supports that can be offered?
How we think through the details of their lived reality, the real details of their living reality, and then what they’re facing to be able to give and to get their families to support them to leave. And so impressive then that you did two international week long academies and that these individual women, they started out locally.
They did the two and a half day training. They learned, they went back and they shared back to their families, I think. And they shared back to their communities and they managed to then get more support and permission and buy-in and really to be able to go a week abroad for this amazing opportunity. A whole week, which I know we often, and I think those of us living in who’ve lived in different big cities, maybe take for granted that, if you’re not living in a multi-generational home anymore, where you live with your grandparents, you live in three generations and therefore there is a lot of caregiving responsibilities that falls to women. I think a lot of women in Tokyo or in Osaka or in major cities around the world, maybe don’t feel that pressure that if they want to go out, they have the freedom. They want to go on a trip somewhere. They have that freedom. If they want to go abroad for a week. They have that possibility. But so many women in rural Japan with these caregiving realities, and embeddedness in a multi-generational home, maybe do not have that. And just even thinking about that piece, you are so courageous. So talk to me about the first training that you built with Eileen’s in Seattle and how that was transformational?
Megumi: Yes, it’s also related to me studying. I also started to take a leadership program for myself outside of Japan, because I was also one of them at the Grassroots Academy. I faced so many issues, but it was thinking really small things, but I couldn’t really see from a different point of view.
And I studied to participate in the Tomodachi Leadership Initiative and in 2013, I think. Then I met several different kinds of leaders. And in 2014, I participated in Boston. JWI Japanese Women’s Leadership initiative by the Fish Family Foundation there. Oh my God. I was treated so well, they provided every detail.
Like everything I drink, everything I eat, all the sweets are so beautiful. And I felt like, oh my God, is it very expensive? I felt like I was treated so well. I was welcomed and the venue was beautiful. I myself experienced how beautiful the venue is. And how the food matters and the atmosphere matters.
And in 2016, I participated in the Vital Voices Women’s Leadership program in South Africa, where 50 women leaders from around the globe were chosen and got together. And I saw one woman with a small baby, like an eight months old baby. And she was fine participating. And the three other women, they said they’re pregnant and they were participating and they were fine. And of course they checked with the doctor and the one woman from Brazil, she took her mom to take up the baby while she was attending the program.
And that was all okay. The Vital Voices was trying to show everyone how we can be comfortable, how we can participate. It’s not because they are pregnant so that they can not participate because they have a baby, they cannot participate, but they try to include as much as possible. And I saw, oh my God, I think it’s really important that I experienced myself as a participant.
Jackie: And it’s exciting that they helped in some ways they’re diversifying, they’re challenging the stereotypes around who can be a leader. And then, oh if you’re pregnant, you need to take a time out now you’re, you need to go back to biology, just like tap out for a while because now you’re pregnant. Why? And if you feel good and if you want to be there and learning during that phase, or even if you have a, an eight month old, whatever, why is it this idea that somehow you’re written off as leadership caliber now, because you must be on the mommy track and therefore you won’t be fully committed and being able to deliver for your company or for your organization or for whatever.
But really we know that productivity in human beings is, maximum productivity is roughly five to six hours a day of maximum, really intense, full productivity of a human being. And so we work these crazy long days, but really if we would be strategic in how we use our time, there is no incompatibility between high productivity and innovation and leadership and excellence and having children and having caregiving responsibilities.
We created all of these workplace cultures and all of these organizations that are boxed in around one, man’s kind of a lifestyle. And it doesn’t even serve men well. Because men have so many different hats they also want to wear as fathers and as sons and caregivers and coaches for whatever little league or just, being a supportive co-parent and being a primary co-parents is another bigger trend we’re seeing even in, in the young men, in Japan. So we need to morph and learn from this. And I think how you brought that into the programs was really clear. Very present in the thoughtfulness that went into the design.
And I remember I was having a conversation about how….training in Japan. When you go to a training program, when you go to a kenshuu, it is so bureaucratic and technocratic and technical skills being taught a lot of the time. And you were saying how you really wanted it to be more of a holistic leadership framework, not just come and get a skill, a technical skill, and then we send you home and you learned how to use the computer or use Microsoft Word.
And that’s important too. And we need those kinds of training too. But for these academies, it was really inspiring their minds… and we’ve lost our guest temporarily, but I imagine she will be joining back on the feed so we will stay tuned. And in the meantime, I will share about the many ways that I learned through this participatory action research project where I was able to meet these individual women, roughly 90 to 95 women from all across Tohoku. Women who were engaged in rebuilding their own city where they weren’t gauged and rebuilding, and they were recognized within their cities as change agents locally. And they were nominated to join the Grassroots Academy program. And they were selected in some ways because of their leadership and recognition locally. And they were brought into the academies as recognized change agents. And I from that point then watched their leadership journey unfold for three and four years. And also did in-depth interviews with them to get to know them better, to hear in some ways their backstories, to hear where they came from, why they came to the academies, what they were learning through the academies, what their aspirations were. In five years time, where did they want to be? And so we started the project, the research around 2015 was the first pivotal academy that the Grassroots Academy that NPO Women’s Eye hosted. And I would ask them in my interview, and I think Megumi we’ve talked about this, one of my interview questions would be: Okay. The international agreement that all member states around the world who care about disaster risk reduction. We just had this big agreement adopted in 2015. The next agreement is going to be adopted in 15 years. So can you add 15 to what your current age is. And then can you just think about it, take a minute. I would give them a couple of minutes to think, and I would say in 15 years, where will you be? How old would you be? And they would think out loud, we would do this thought partnering.
Oh my goodness. Okay. In 15 years, oh, my children will have left the home. I know I would have kids still at home. I’m going to be, I assume it’s living in the same place, but what will I be doing? Will I be engaged in the current projects I’m in? Or will my career be different? And they would go through this out loud, imagining going 15 years ahead and going, oh wow. And I would ask them to set some ideas about how they hope to use that 15 years to fulfill their happiness. And just that, just to say, think about, and then you go away and as a researcher, I leave it. And I leave it and I would check back with them like a year later or two years later.
But in the meantime, there’s a percolating, there’s a constant percolating that, oh, in 15 years, where am I going to be? What do I want to do? What did I tell Jackie in that interview? And the percolating in your mind keeps happening so that they’re thinking forward about what their happiness requires and then how they can help set the course towards that and keep that anchor directing them.
And then they would have another leadership academy experience with Women’s Eye, and there was just this interesting leadership blossoming that, that I would see. And so it’s how do we support each other? Like you say, if we circle back, Megumi to your mentoring. The young woman from the orphanage just even allowing to hold the space of asking different questions about what do you, what is your happiness require?
Where do you want to be? And how do you want to end up in 15 years? And then how do you think about just focusing on you, if now your children are gone, where do you situate yourself back as the center of your journey?
Megumi: That was exactly, I was thinking that’s really the Seattle program also, I think impacted you and all of the participants and including me as well through the program. We really try to see not learning from outside, but just try to see yourself, how you really feel, what’s your voice inside you.
What do you really desire here? What do you want to do in your life? A week-long journey of yourself.
Jackie: And we heard each other share what is our highest calling in life here on this earth? What is our highest calling? And then we heard each other and we believed each other.
We believed what was told and shared and said, great. That sounds fabulous. Yes, we want to support you in those efforts, whatever it is you want to do, you choose, you have full sovereignty to go forward with your pathway of self-determination, to choose your journey. And then all of the rest of us bear witness.
And honoring what they said as their choice, right?
Megumi: Yes. So I think we realized that it’s not just learning from outside, what leadership is. How we can support each other, but also just to say it yourself, to hear your voice, why you are doing this, why you are doing what you really want to do and just be authentic of yourself. And it comes to what you want to do and what you want to do next.
So I hope that I’ll be doing this for the next 15 years.
Jackie: Me, too. Certainly for me this quest to go back to my feminist philosophical roots of what passions me as somebody believing in diversity and feminist thinking and thought leadership and then bringing that to society.
And I had gotten too far removed from that, even in my academic journey. And I actually found that re-centering in Seattle with everyone and it was so amazing.
Megumi: Yeah. So then that’s why we’re planning for the April 11th event as well. Both of us are planning and creating this event, I hope everyone will join us from Japan and from the states and wherever they are.
Jackie: We will have simultaneous translation and we will be hearing all of the stories of these amazing, impressive change agents, young women from the grassroots of Tohoku. We’re going to be holding this one month after the anniversary. So on April 11th in the morning in Japan, but in the evening on April 10th for everyone joining us from North America, we will be sharing that information shortly.
And maybe we can close Megumi. If you had one pivotal message or insight or learning journey from your experiences of the last 10 years, working with young women leaders in Tohoku and through your own journey, what would you want for people to think about moving forward?
Megumi: So I’ll just say, just try anything and everything you want to try and you don’t need to be afraid, it’s okay to make a mistake. And you learn so much from mistakes and failing and it’s okay. And ask for help if you fail. And then, maybe it’s an opportunity to have a really good relationship with someone when you’re in that place and someone helps you and that’s a real friend. I’ve been through that. And then just listen to your own voice and enjoy.
Jackie: That was amazing. And the pivotal phrase I kept from the Seattle experience was “Jibun ni mukiau”. We had time, we took time to meet ourselves and to exchange words. And so, what you just said to listen to your own voice and your own desires I think is exactly right.
What are her desires, right? How do we go back to honoring that is the best takeaway ever and for today’s guests, we will leave you with that inspirational point and goal that we just need to keep going back to listening to what our heart desires. So I wish to thank Megumi for the amazing interview that, of course, we ran a little bit over time because there was too much to share and talk about . And I didn’t want us to cut short, so thank you for that.
Megumi: Thank you, Jackie.