Report on the African Night Event

“African Night” was held in CASACO which is renovated old folk house located in Yokohama.

This event was organized by two NGOs which are Connection of the Children (CoC) and Global Bridge Network (GBN). We planned this event to feel closeness to Africa because many Japanese don’t have opportunity to know about Africa.

-Agenda-
 December 18th(Sun), 2016

 15:00 Open

 16:00 African Quiz Session

 17:00 Enjoy African Dance session

 18:30 Presentation about Pearl of Africa (Uganda)

 19:30 Close 

Presentation in Japanese by our friend, Precious from Uganda

African Dance session♪

-Food menu-

 ・Ugandan beans soup and rice

 ・Ugandan curried cabbage

-Drink menu-

 Beer (Kenya), Whisky (South Africa), White wine (South Africa), Sherry (Uganda), 

 Coffee (Uganda and Rwanda), other drinks.

-African craft-

 ・Handmade ornaments with African fabric designed and made by Ms. Alyx, the owner of “Ornament Designs”

 ・African leather and fabric crafts produced by Ugandan NGO “Bereesera”

 ・African accessories

 ・African crafts (necklace, pierce, bracelet, bag, basket etc.)

Small shop with African crafts and accessory and Alyx’s ornaments etc.

About 30 guests including Ugandan, Cameroonian, American and Japanese attended our event. They enjoyed African culture, dance, food and communication with other people.

For GBN, this is our first event! We really appreciated all participation and happy to collaborate with CoC.

Towers the end of the event, they enjoyed dancing too much to stop!

CoC and GBN would like to hold an international event sometimes again, and we are also planning to organize a cultural exchange with Japanese and African children over  internet.

Beautiful Collaboration! Thanks, All!! 

Kasim& Precious family, Kei and Maiko from GBN

Thank you for your participations!

＊GBN's Facebook＊

https://www.facebook.com/globalbridgenetwork/

The African Night in Yokohama♪

The African Night event will be held in 'old folk' housein Yokohama!

This event will be organised by two NGOs which are Global Bridge Network(GBN) and Connection of the Children（CoC）.

During this event the Japanese will interact with Africans to know more about Africa.
African foods and drinks will be served while enjoying African music.

Also, there will be a charity bar and shop with African crafts and accessory etc.
When you order one drink, ¥50 extra on each drink's cost will be donated to GBN's project to help
school girls make their own sanitary towels.

ーーーーーーーー
Date: 18th of Dec,Sunday,15:00～19:30
Venue:Casaco/23-1,azumagaoka, Yokohama
Fee: ¥1,500 (Food and 1 drink)
Contact:info@coc-i.org
FB：https://www.facebook.com/events/1654972308129603/
ーーーーーーーー
～Agenda～
15:00 Open
16:00 African Quiz Session
   (You can get a small prezent if you win!)
17:00 Enjoy African Dance session
18:00 Presentation about pearl of Africa
19:30 Close

＊There is a donation box, so you can contribute for our project.

Come one come all.

＊GBN's Facebook＊

https://www.facebook.com/globalbridgenetwork/

Alyx’s Ornament Designs with African Fabric

Today, I would like to introduce our collaborator, Alyx. 

She is the owner, designer and maker at Ornament Designs.com.

Alyx  Mazerov Yuasa

She makes beautiful and elaborate handmade ornaments which can decorate not only Christmas tree but also as interior home decor or a gift for your family and friends. 

We started a collaboration between Global Bridge Network(GBN) and Ornament Designs to produce beautiful and lovely ornaments with African Fabric, called Kitenge, which is a colorful and unique pattern and unique to African countries. 

Alyx cutting African fabric!

The ornaments with African Fabric are here!!!!

Alyx arranged this fabric and made fashionable and incredible ornaments.

We love her sense of style!!

Imagine they would be such unique ornaments in your house! You must enjoy them and feel happy ♡

In addition, she will donate 30% of this proceeds to Global Bridge Network and these proceeds will be allocated to help girls in Uganda to stay school, the project name is “Impact Assessment on Combatting Menstrual Hygiene ManagementChallenges to Stop Adolescent Girl’s School Dropouts in Uganda” 

Please enjoy her products and your happy purchase would help vulnerable school girls in Africa!

This is Order Made, so please contact
info@globalbridgenetwork.org

Ornament Designs

<HP>http://ornamentdesigns.com/

<Shop>https://www.etsy.com/shop/ornamentdesigns

Thank you so much!!

＊GBN's Facebook＊

https://www.facebook.com/globalbridgenetwork/

Introduction of the founder of GBN & Executive Director, Maiko Ohnishi

Hello Everyone!　

Thank you for visiting our blog!

I am Maiko Ohnishi, the funder of Global Bridge Network (GBN) started in June 2016.

Let me introduce myself and express my passion about why I started GBN

<My passion of international development>

During my undergraduate studies in 1997, I joined an international volunteer program in Nepal as a manual labor to build a primary school in a small village. Living there was challenging, as there was no tap water, electricity or bathrooms. However, the people of the village always helped each other, and I was truly impressed by their great hospitality. I grew up in an advanced country like Japan and had never worried about my basic needs. However, I always felt emptiness with somehow poor interpersonal relations. Then I learned great lessons from their community reliance which helped me to heal myself at that time.

There was one particular incident that occurred during the volunteer which I cannot forget. A young child was burned severely, and his mother brought him to me and asked for money to take him to the hospital. Because I was a student with limited pocket, I could not give her money, and I felt so helpless. This incident made me realize that a major problem in poor areas is lack of access to adequate healthcare and social welfare systems. This awareness made me have more desire to find how to facilitate the needed tools to improve the condition of people’s lives.

<The long journey to reach the field>

Although I was desiring to work in the field of international development after graduation, I had no opportunity to engage in such a field due to my limited professional experience. Then, I worked in IT as a system engineer for a few years but I couldn’t give up my interest. I finally resigned from IT job and relocated to the United States for participation in an internship program in 2003, working as a research assistant at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington, DC., I also earned a Master’s degree in International Policy Studies from Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS) in California in 2008, specializing in International Development. After my master program, I had finally worked for Japanese Non-governmental organizations and engaged in several international programs in Middle east, Myanmar, Vietnam, Iraq, and Mongolia etc.

Despite of so many years I took to reach this field, I was not satisfied with what I was doing. I felt there is a huge gap between my work and what I desired to do. I struggled myself by considering whether my involved works really meet the local people’s needs or not.

<Starting the Global Bridge Network>

During the time when I was in Uganda in 2015, I found a huge challenge of adolescent school girls who face difficulties to go to school due to their menstruation. I felt there is a huge need to support, which motivated me to address this issue. I believe the local people/partners who can truly understand community/people’s needs. Thus, I thought it to be so effective to work with a local partner to reach and meet their needs. Fortunately, I was so lucky to have a great local partner, SORAK to work with us. Therefore, in order to build a cooperative relationship and legitimize all activities as a legal organization, Global Bridge Network was registered as a non-governmental organization in Japan in 2016.

GBN would like to build a WIN-WIN situation through equal relationship and want to get into the wide range of fields such as children’s education, protection and social business as well as expand more different areas not only in Africa, but also in any other countries. GBN wants to be a bridge between people all over the world to help mutual relationship.

I really enjoy interacting with people through GBN and appreciate all your support and cooperation!

Sincerely,

Maiko Ohnishi

＊GBN's Facebook＊