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Y-PLAN Global

Featured Programs

TOMODACHI Softbank Leadership Program

Building Resilience for over 1,000 young leaders from Tohoku, Japan

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Over 10 years (2012 – 2024), 1000 Japanese high school students have embraced their ability to lead through the TOMODACHI Softbank Leadership Program. By participating in a three week process in the Bay Area – in which students plan and enact a plan to address key civic issues – students return home knowing they can make a difference.

The TOMODACHI SoftBank Leadership Initiative (“TOMODACHI”) is the longest running partnership and as such, offers powerful evidence of the world-changing power of Y-PLAN in a global context. Created by the United States Japan Council (“USJC”), and sponsored by the SoftBank Group, this unique program started in 2012, after the deadly Great Eastern Japan Earthquake of 2011 and resulting tsunami which devastated the Tohoku region. Each year since 2012, the program brings 100 Japanese high-school students from the Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima Prefectures – the communities most devastated by the disaster – to Berkeley, California for a three week immersive program, involving skills-based classroom work, collaborative short-term projects in and with local communities that are experiencing similar challenges, and cultural exchange activities.

In the Y-PLAN leadership studio, students work with local communities in the Bay Area to propose solutions to community development problems, growing their critical thinking skills and their confidence as potential changemakers and leaders. Coupled with immersion experiences in local communities, they apply what they have learned to their Action Plans, a set of steps they prepare in collaboration with other students and staff members, to be put into effect when they return to their home communities. Action Plan topics cover hundreds of different and deeply meaningful projects ranging from a pop-up farm-to-table restaurant to connect locals and support area farms in Fukushima; using a traditional Japanese art of paper play, Kamishibai, to ensure that younger generations will know the stories of those who lived through the 2011 disaster; to a temporary housing beautification project, using magnets, to bring love and light to families in Miyagi, along with many, many more.

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UC Berkeley Center for Cities and Schools Global Seed

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  • About Us
    • History & Awards
    • Driving Principles
    • Leadership Team
  • How We Work
    • Program Options
    • Inside & Outside the Classroom
    • Cultural Exchange & College Readiness
  • Programs
    • Overview
    • TOMODACHI Softbank Leadership
    • Y-PLAN Shanghai & Beijing
    • China Leadership Studio
    • Y-PLAN Indonesia
    • Sub-Saharan Africa
    • Jóvenes en Acción
    • World Leadership Conference
    • Emerging Leaders Senegal
  • Impact
    • By the Numbers
    • Long Term Results
    • Creativity as Critical Thinking
    • Authentic Engagement Leads to Action
    • Leadership as a Form of Resilience
  • Connect
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