MANILA – HANDs! (Hope & Dreams) Project is a bi-annual youth exchange program for Asian countries to engage and mobilize young professionals and university students in the field of disaster risk reduction, recovery, and education. The selected research fellows will go on four research tours in Asia to learn from experts in the field, local and international NGOs, and communities affected by natural disasters.
The Japan Foundation, Manila has selected 5 exceptional young Filipinos to participate as this year’s HANDs cohort. They join 20 other research fellows from the Japan Foundation’s Southeast Asian offices and will include participants from India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, and Japan. This month, they will through Indonesia and the Philippines to begin their initial research, which will result in an action plan proposal to the Japan Foundation Asia Center in 2016. In February – March 2016, they will visit Thailand and Japan for the final leg of their research trips.The Philippines program, focusing on education and social entrepreneurship, was fortunate to partner with Ashoka Philippines, co.lab, Habi Education Lab, and Curiosity Design Research.
Ashoka is an international organization that supports social innovators and entrepreneurs; their Philippine office is located in co.lab, a coworking space created to spark collaborative fusion among like-minded individuals resulting in cross pollination between a range of sectors and industries. Habi Education Lab and Curiosity Design Research promote a culture of learning, teaching, and understanding through design thinking, using a framework of human-centered design that focuses on empathy, participatory engagement, and rapid prototyping of ideas.
An intense week of travel and research, the Philippines program developed with our partners will certainly help the HANDs research fellows propose innovative action plans that will be presented at the Japan Foundation headquarters in Tokyo, Japan in March 2016. (Eagle News Service/Japan Foundation Manila)
