NYdV Newsletter
Let's make a difference July-December 2009 (Vol.15)

Thank you so much for supporting NYdV!!
Please enjoy our newsletter Vol.15, July-December 2009.

1.NYdV News

TV Japan is a broadcasting company that shows Japanese TV programs in the U.S. It started a new program called "TV Japan Club: Enjoy Hiroba (Square)," which features Japanese groups who take an active part in the U.S. NYdV is proud to be the very first group featured on the show, which was aired on August 15th, 2009. Mr. Sato, Director of TV Japan, has been watching NYdV grows since its establishment and he gave us this opportunity because he said he wanted to show viewers around the U.S. the activities and hard work of NYdV. Being on such a program meant that we had an opportunity to attract attention for volunteerism among people around the U.S. And NYdV, as an organization who promotes and spreads volunteerism, sincerely appreciates TV Japan for providing such a wonderful opportunity. Thank you, TV Japan!!

Noriko Hino started a blog in Japanese! The contents include activity reports, news, daily events, and more. You can find the latest updates about NYdV activities and Noriko's thoughts on the activities. Please check it out! http://ameblo.jp/nydvnoriko/

In July 2009, NYdV renewed its website by simplifying its color and design, and the renewed website achieved Google Page Rank 5 in August 2009! What is Google Page Rank? To be brief, it's a measure by Google to evaluate importance of websites by comprehensively judging elements such as the number of accesses and searches. The rank is from 1 to 10 and 10 is the best. It's a brilliant achievement that NYdV website is ranked 5 among many websites, and Noriko Hino, Executive Director, as well as NYdV staff members are enthusiastic to make the website useful to everyone!

This year, as part of "Philanthropy through Beauty", NYdV started make-up workshops where professional make-up artists teach make-up skills to participants. In this program, participants can not only enjoy learning make-up skills for themselves but also make use of the skill at NYdV's annual program, "The Japanese Spa Day," where volunteers put make-up on residents in a nursing home. This is a program that lets participants cultivate one's outer and inner beauty at the same time. Starting with a workshop for "Eye Make-Up for Business Environments" on July 19th, we had a total of 4 workshops including "Make-Up for Parties" on August 9th, "Self Face Massage" on September 19th, and "Base Make-Up" on November 20th. Using make-up products donated by POLA and NARS, the workshops offered lectures with detailed explanations by some of the best professional instructors. Participating instructors were Ms. Ai Sakai, Executive Director of "Ai Love Hair," who has been in charge of hair and make-up for over 50 weddings a year, Mr. Koichiro Takahashi, President of a beauty consulting company "Beauty Comm, Inc.," and Ms. Yoshie Nezu who plays an active part in New York Collection as well as on TV, Commercials and magazines. The workshops won popularity among participants and they happily left positive comments such as "It's very useful!" and "I'm looking forward to participating with 'The Japanese Spa Day.'" The workshop "Make-Up for Parties" was reported on "Shukan NY Seikatsu (Japanese Weekly Free Newspaper)" Vol. 268 on August 22nd, 2009.

On September 25th, 2009, NYdV had an event to support NYdV activities, Happy Hour Fundraiser, at Slattery's Midtown Pub in Midtown! With support from Slattery's Midtown Pub, NYdV staff members served as wait staff, and all tips were donated to NYdV. Since no R.S.V.P was required and there was no entrance fee, we could not anticipate if any guest at all would show up. However, we had more than 60 guests from a variety of nationalities, occupations, and generations! As a result, we successfully raised about 1,000 dollars and we have been using it with care for our Explore Japanese Culture (EJC) program, which started in fall, 2009. Thank you so much for your support!! Having this success, we'd like to have the event again. This event is designed not only as fundraising event but also as a first step to start volunteering where anyone can participate while having fun. For those who hesitate to start volunteering, this is a perfect opportunity to start making friends and hear about our volunteer activities before participating.

To continue NYdV programs, especially in this difficult time of recession, it is critical to secure stable funding through support from individuals like all of you, as well as from organizations and foundations. We are grateful to have received $4,900 from the Center for Global Partnership, and $28,000 from United States-Japan Foundation, both grants for our Explore Japanese Culture (EJC) program. Also, we have received $1,500 for our program, The Japanese Spa Day, from Japan Medical Society of America (JMSA) who included NYdV as part of The JMSA Community Outreach Program (JCOP), a program to support Japanese not-for-profit medical organization. We have been using the grants effectively to make our programs better and continue them. Thank you so much for the support.

2. NYdV Activities from July to December 2009

NYdV has answered needs for local NPOs in New York city by carrying out our programs that contains three elements including experience, education, and exchange, and has boosted the morale of the volunteers to participate.

On September 11th, 2009, NYdV supported "Memorial Service for 9.11 Victims with Floating Lantern" hosted by The New York Buddhist Church along the Hudson River. It was a ceremony to mourn for the victims and to pass on hope for peace over borders and religions, and it was the 8th year of this event. Weather on the day was unusually bad, but we had over 40 volunteers who helped asking participants of the ceremony to write messages on handmade Japanese floating lanterns. With the hard rain, we worried about not having enough messages on the floating lanterns, but we had many more participants than we expected. A total of 108 floating lanterns were filled with memorial messages and hope for peace written in various languages, and they were peacefully floated on the Hudson River. 8 years has passed since the terrorist attack and it is said that the memory has been fading with time. However, NYdV believes that it is important to mourn the victims and to hope for world peace every year, and so, we will continue the program.

NWe introduce Japanese culture by conducting "Explore Japanese Culture! An Afterschool Program (EJC)" originally planned by NYdV, as one of the after school programs provided by the recreation centers of New York City. The goal of this program is to provide young children in NY with opportunities to cultivate a sense of "Global Citizenship" by coming into contact with a different culture and its values. This program will satisfy the educational needs of New York City which is notable for its diversity education (education about a variety of people). In this program, we introduce Japanese culture and lifestyle to American children ages 6-13 years old in eight sessions. The contents include Japanese language, Japanese games, Japanese food, Japanese martial arts, tea ceremony, Japanese dance, and so on. From fall 2009 to spring 2010, we held this program in a total of 6 recreation centers including where we had the program 2 years ago, and others recreation centers who had heard good things about the program from those recreation centers with experience with us. These locations are not only in Manhattan but all over NYC including Brooklyn, The Bronx, and Queens. Yoko, one of the volunteers who participated with this program at a recreation center in Brooklyn wrote a report (extract): On November 20th, I participated with EJC for the first time. It was the 5th session at the location and the theme of the day was "Food - Tofu Hamburg (hamburger without a bun)." Before starting, I expected that those kids in NY will have fun because Japanese kids like cooking class too. But at the same time, I was little anxious if I can help them well or if I can even communicate with them. The program started in Japanese style with "Kiritsu (Stand up)," "Rei (Bow)," and "Chakuseki (Be seated)," and volunteers introduced themselves to kids. My heart raced as I introduced myself, but the kids answered me back cheerfully in Japanese saying "Konnichiwa (Hello) Yoko-san!" and I was surprised and impressed. Thanks to them, I wasn't nervous anymore... Now, it's time to cook Tofu Hamburg. I overheard conversations between kids; "What is this white stuff?" "This is Tofu." One was trying to make huge Hamburg, another was warning "Please leave enough for everyone!" One was shaping his Hamburg round like a baseball, another was teaching "No, it should shape this way." I watched kids teaching each other... "Is my Hamburg grilled yet?" "Can I eat now?" Kids can hardly wait now and it's time to eat. Once their Hamburgs were put on each tables, kids cheered with big smiles...I realized that they learned the importance of food when I saw kids who carefully held and finished eating the Hamburg without leaving a piece, and who happily show the Hamburg to her mom who came to pick her up. I was excited but anxious in the beginning but I had such a fun time playing with kids with their help. It was just like the famous wisdom; "Fear is often worse than the danger itself." Even though I had lived in NY, a melting pot of races, I didn't get a chance to meet the locals as kids in inner city area don't have a chance to experience different cultures... It was first time for me to be surrounded by so many smiles in NY, and I got rich nutrition to my mind through making Tofu Hamburg with them.

Beautification program "Learn from Cleaning New York" was held on October 24th and 25th as part of the 7th visit to New York by the "Beautify Japan" Group established on November 1993 by the volunteers who are following "Soji Tetsugaku" (Cleaning Philosophy) written by Mr. Hidesaburo Kagiyama, founder of Yellow Hat Corporation. NYdV has been arranging the location and volunteers in New York for this event since their first visit. A total of 35 people participated and they are from groups who have worked on beautification and environmental problems in NY, such as "Big Apple Beautifiers", "Gommunication", "The Urban Divers Estuary Conservancy", and American volunteers from "NY Cares" and children who live in the neighborhood. Here is a report from a volunteer: Mr. Nagao, a member of the beatification group told us how to clean...Then, we had a happy surprise. Local kids who often visit the recreation center volunteered to clean with us, and there were 30 of them!! An 11-years-old girl named Lavender cleaned with me, and she polished walls and hand dryers until they shined using a scrub brush and tooth brush. Some kids were cleaning the floor using clothes. When NYdV Staff Michiyo told them "Dirty clothes are the proof that you cleaned hard!" they started clean the floor eagerly and went to show her their dirty clothes delightfully saying "Look how dirty it is. I cleaned so hard." "Look, mine is even dirtier." When she praised them in Japanese "Pika pika dane (It's so shiny)," they repeated the Japanese word "Pika pika" and got more excited. It seemed like they wanted to clean more and they started a competition; who can make their clothes dirtiest by cleaning blinds by the windows. I saw lights coming in from cleaned blinds and the room almost changed to become unrecognizable.

3. You are the HERO!

"You are the Hero!" is a column to introduce heroes/heroines who take active part in various programs of NYdV. *Mr. Paul Golin/ NYdV Advisor *Mrs. Yurika Golin/ NYdV Program Staff In this issue, we introduce Mr. Paul and Mrs. Yurika Golin. They've been involved with NYdV since their first participation with our program in 2002. Taking advantage of his experience working in a not-for-profit organization himself, Paul has been helping NYdV in grant writing and other areas as an advisor. Yurika has been supporting NYdV as program staff, and she has been in charge of The Japanese Spa Day for three years while also flying all over the world as a flight attendant. Being asked what they think about NYdV, Paul said "Something very unique is that NYdV plays two roles at the same time: Cultural exchange between Japan and the U.S., and an introduction to volunteerism and philanthropy. Also, not only recipients but also volunteers themselves benefit and are affected positively by NYdV programs by experiencing a new world and increasing the awareness." He continues, "NYdV not only consists of specialists but anyone can participate in the programs and give ideas. In this way, I believe, NYdV has great potential to grow and expand through volunteers with new ideas." Yurika experienced this herself. She said, "When I started participating with NYdV programs, I was in college and I was not confident enough to volunteer as a staff member of NYdV. However, through participating in the programs, I had great opportunities to see so many smiles and received 'Thank you', and it encouraged and helped me to be confident gradually." "NYdV is a great place to learn and be moved," she said, with smile. She continued, "And even though volunteerism is not familiar to Japanese people yet compared to Americans, and often Japanese people seem to be hesitated to volunteer by taking it too seriously, I think volunteers can actually have 'fun' with NYdV programs by meeting different people and finding different sides of New York. Volunteering is something anyone can do with just a little bit of courage, and I hope more people will participate in the programs." For Yurika who's been busy with her work and family, activities with NYdV seem like a good opportunity for a change. With their support, NYdV will keep growing. Thank you for your support.

Message to NYdV Supporters

Thank you so much for supporting NYdV. This is Noriko Hino, Executive Director. "Explore Japanese Culture After School Program" , created and provided by NYdV, is designed to provide children from disadvantaged communities in New York with an opportunity to experience diversity and cultural differences while cultivating sense of global citizenship. This is one of the volunteer opportunities suitable for Japanese people living in New York. The reason for New York City to add our EJC program as their official program was because they realized the importance for children to experience cultural difference for diversity education. By introducing Japanese culture to children, we can show them different ways of thoughts and diversity. I believe that this can't be done without us, Japanese, who came from the other side of the earth, and who look very different from them. By the end of the program after two months, children in the program told us their dreams. "Now, I love Japan! I'd love to know more about Japan and I'd like to tell about Japan to other children in future." "I'd like to be an English teacher and live in different countries around the world." By broadening their world through this program, their dreams become their goals. I'm sure those curious children will enjoy exploring the different world. In recession, I'm sure many of you have been having difficult time. In fact, a lot of NPOs have been suffering from less and less donations. NYdV is not an exception and we are facing difficulty receiving fund for EJC program from New York City this year. We could stop this program because of insufficient budget. However, it means to take an opportunity from children to experience different cultures. We can't continue our programs without your kind support. Please help us with your donation for continuing our programs. Let's work together to broaden children's view point and create bright future for them. Thank you for your cooperation.

Allumonde Wear the cause! 

Felissimo and NYdV collaborated on a project called "Alumonde." One of the projects that Felissimo created is DESIGN 21: Social Design Network, whereby members of the design community, socially conscious individuals, local governments, businesses and non-profit organizations (NPOs) can address social concerns and create smart solutions through design. It's a way in which like-minded people can connect to share resources, inspire each other and take action.


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Stainless Steel -$35
Titanium Coating -$55
Silver -$85, Gold-$2,500

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Newsletter Vol.15 Staff