Digital Citizens Mentorship

YouMeWe NPO became official in January 2018 with not only the help of the board of like-minded people who have been working together for over ten years in the space of helping children but also our first corporate sponsor COLT.net.

YouMeWe creates critical education support programs for kids living in Japanese children's homes to help guide them on their journey to become independent, successful young adults within the communities.

We see connectivity through our Digital Citizens program as significant for abused, neglected and orphaned kids achieving long-term success. From language, computer literacy, cross-cultural and cross-generational connections, this teaches the children the power of connectivity and how it can successfully transform their lives.

OUR BENEFICIARIES:

5 homes in Tohoku and 5 homes in Tokyo which is over 600 children

Only 5% have access to Wifi

33% are two grade levels behind their peers

From 9% before and now 16% are going on to university compared to 60% national average.

YMW TODAY:

10 board members who have over 10 years of experience creating relevant support programs for children’s homes across Japan but primarily Tohoku and Tokyo. Relationships that started in 2007 and after 3/11, we had experience working with homes in Tohoku expanding our relationships significantly.

YMW CORE Programs:

NightZooKeeper is an online global language curriculum for kids that uses special software and mentors to improve verbal and written communications skills as well as to connect Japanese kids (many of whom are half Japanese) with children from all over the world. By working on language skills and connection kids from other cultures, over time, we see improved communication skills and confidence levels. This program is lead by a 17-year-old Digital Citizen who recently lead a group of adults around Kyoto as an English speaking tour guide.

140 schools in the UK in connection with COLT, Greece Syrian Refugee camp, Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, Ghana, and Malaysia.

2019 goals: Increase the number of kids using for Arabic, Japanese, and English.

Code Club lead by our own 16-year-old Digital Citizen, he has included his high school PC club and they are working to create a group which can reach out to the community and younger kids to teach coding in a fun and meaningful way focused on projects.

Obaa-chan in the cloud originally a program to focus on how to connect the young with the elderly ICT skills, we have started with the interviewing of elderly and capturing their story “in the cloud” for future generations to hear the stories. Recently launched by celebrity Shiho Yano who interviewed her Grandmother in our StoryCorps and YouTube community.

YMW FINANCES

Audit report on our homepage  https://www.youmewenpo.org/donate/

We are looking forward to 2019 with new sponsors added to our list including KIWL (Knights in White Lycra) www.kiwl.net and BNP Paribas.

We will also celebrate the 10th Designing Artists Academy which brought many of us together in the first place.

2019 Calendar of Events

January:

Code Club

Ichigo Jam event

Design and Cut with laser printers

February:

EDGE Of and BNP Hackathon (tentative)

March:

IOT and Electronics

April:

Smart Phone class for elderly by kids

May:

Digital Fabrication and Game Creation

June:

KIWL Bike Ride

July:

Prep for Designing Artist Academy (DAA)

August:

DAA 2 week summer camp for kids

September:

Programming and Robotics

COLT Bike Ride

October:

Programming and Drones

November:

KIWL Golf tournament

KIWL Run

December:

Christmas Wish

Links:

• COLT Bike ride charity raiser
• Michael Clemons explaining YouMeWe NPO
• Obaa-chan in the cloud kicked off by Celebrity Shiho

We are very happy with the progress made this year with YouMeWe NPO.

Communications Development Programs

We offer online language software programs, as well as 1:1 language tutoring at interested children's homes. Providing kids with opportunities to expand their language skills and/or help teach other kids living in other countries is an exciting way for them to open up their perspective, learn about other cultures, and feel connected to something bigger in the world. There are several projects (either in an online format or in-person) that we can offer children's homes. Additionally, we have an annual summer arts program (Designing Artists Academy) that offers sessions ranging from music, dance and acting to animation, illustration, photography and crafts. These sessions allow kids to freely explore different art forms, encouraging new ways to communicate emotions and perspectives.

Following the Global Giving campaign, we have been able to set up a computer lab in Boracay, Philippines and connected the children of Matsubaen in Tokyo usingNightZooKeeper. Nightzookeeper is a game based way for children to learn writing skills in English. Each week, we send assignments and the children are able to write essays or take quizzes and making drawings of their animals which enter the Night Zoo.

Once the teacher reviews the entries and makes corrections or publishes, it goes to a class blog which the children are able to see each other's writings. While the YouMeWe School is planning to roll out to all ten homes in Japan, continue in Philippines, Indonesia, Greece with the refugee children and possibly Uganda.

We feel this is very important for the children of the homes in Japan to make connections with other children globally so they can prepare for possibly teaching Japanese language skills online. We have appointed one of the children in Japan as a Tech Lead for the program.

The common challenge we find among the children, across the age groups and locations is Cyber-bullying and we are going to address this with Anti-Cyberbullying Campaign between the different countries which can be involved.

Digital Citizenship

One of our goals is to ensure kids are well versed in technology, enabling them to safely and responsibly communicate and collaborate across school, future work environments, and everyday life. We offer children a variety of software training and mentoring to prepare them for secondary school or to increase their chances of securing a job at the age of 18.

The Code Club was kicked off in Tokyo lead by one of the children as a Tech Lead. He is currently leading the computer club at school and we are looking at having our children involved but also making this a community involved project which also can include their friends at school, invite the elderly in the community and we can also help the children teach the younger generation basic coding skills.

The curriculum over several months can also be cross-border involving the other locations in South East Asia.

We also visited Apple Ginza for a Field Trip where the kids learned to make music and add it to their own movies.

Career Assessment / Mentoring

In September we launched the Mentor/Mentee program at Colt's Tokyo office where the members have signed up to mentor the children in the program.

When children turn 15, we offer career assessment testing so they can recognize their aptitude for certain subject matters, as well as potentially developing interests. Test results highlight types of courses they might study in university or technical school, as well as a ranked list of jobs associated with their specific results. We analyze the results and provide guidance on how best to move forward. Would they be interested in an internship opportunity? Do they need counseling on university or technical school options? Or maybe they would like tutoring support in a particular area. The test results set a conversation in motion to help guide children on their future possibilities and the correlating steps that follow these options. Providing kids with several years of preparation and training before they start the job search or university equips them with so much more confidence and experience.

COLT “Connectiving Matter” hosted a 24 hour Spinathon as a kick off to the Fund-Raising Bike Ride which will lead to more donations for YouMeWe in our CSR partnership.

Some of the children were able to meet Dean Rogers, CEO of Rosetta Stone as part of their Career mentoring events.

Links:

• Colt Bike Ride