Unleash the Potential of Young Changemakers

On behalf of Ashoka Japan, we would like to thank you for your interest in our initiative and your continuous support! 

The purpose of Ashoka Japan Youth Venture Diamond is to nurture intrinsically motivated young change-makers.

As a result of efforts to maintain the principles of no adult intervention or judgment over the past five years we now have 85 young social innovators teams/app.300 including teammates. In this community, they particularly value self-reflection, empathy, and resilience that are missing in Japanese education. Superficial harmony without expressing disagreement, emphasis on accuracy and perfection at the sacrifice of respect towards people’s feelings, reading the vibes to avoid conflicts are the core disciplines in Japanese society. In reality, the principal cause of death among young men (15-39 years old) is suicide and the number of hikikomori or social recluse is constantly increasing. 

In this environment, Youth Venture community serves as an oasis to many creative and out-of-box youths in Japan.

Recruiting candidates

Based on our experience over six years we came to settle with the most recent recruiting approach as follows:

• Word of mouth’ recommendation by current and former YVers.

Since the YVers are the ones who know the standards well, their recommendation usually works very well.  Upon recommendation, Ashoka staff meets the candidate privately for a couple of hours to explore if he/she is eligible for a panel. We make sure the idea(s) is genuinely rooted in their heart, not from extrinsic motivation. The level of intrinsic motivation varies according to the individual. It has to be present even if it is faint. 

• Visit various gatherings such as local social change youth contests etc.  Spot potential candidates and communicate with them. Once spotted, Ashoka staff requests in-person interviews with the candidate(s) privately for a couple of hours to explore his/her idea(s), roots of the idea(s), correlation of the idea(s) to his/her values and beliefs, and readiness to commit to act on the idea(s) for at least a year.

important point: keep our antennae sharp to catch every information on potential candidates.

Disciplines at the selection panel and beyond

Create an environment that is free from judgment, criticism and social/superficial compliments. The communication must be based on honesty and truthfulness. Those standards need to penetrate throughout Youth Venture community both among the youths and adults involved.

Youth Venture community

Ashoka staff serves as facilitators to advance the community, we always involve former YVers in designing and advancing the YV community. Since 2013, we have organized biannual 'We Are the Change' where youth ventures, youth, and adults come together to celebrate challenges and learning and taking action for causes. The Youth Venture hopes to become a spark to begin a movement in Japan - for youth to take action, challenge the world around them and tackle issues in the community.

Youth Venture Leverage

We had the first case of a Youth Venturer turning her YV action into social venture upon graduation from a college this year (April 2017).  Triggered by this we started a program named `Youth Venture Leverage’ that resembles Ashoka Fellow support system at an early stage. We hope to expand this program when we have financial freedom. There are several candidates who will follow her footsteps currently. This support system would attract future social entrepreneurs.

Youth Venture gives us hope that we will be able to overcome many of the problems we are facing today. Your continuous support means a great deal for the youth and the future of Japan. 

Links:

• Ashoka Japan Blog
• Instagram
• Facebook

• Youth Venture Booklet #6 (PDF)