Profile

I worked for the United Nations for five years, and then took part in peace building at various government agencies, universities, and international NGOs. In regards to my overseas assignments, I have worked at conflict areas in the Balkans, Middle East, and Africa. My expertise is in protection of the less fortunate such as refugees, Internally Displaced Persons, Gender Based Violence victims and children. I have also been in a management position in recent years.

Role of Representative

My important role is to “represent” JCCP. This position involves various tasks. For instance, reporting progress situation to or having talks about better proceeding plans with a contact personnel of the Japanese Embassy or international organizations funding our activities, sharing issues and concerns about a project with local key partners and reaching an agreement on correction of the requested activities. Additionally, I introduce JCCP and our activities to relevant local Ministers and gain their support for our projects.

In Nairobi, I negotiate sensitive political issues, as well as give a speech at a course opening ceremony in PKO supporting facility for training, and participate in round-table meeting hosted by an international organization as a panelist. In some cases, I provide advice on policy making including peace building and education initiated by the local government. In addition to fully understanding the JCCP missions, both sufficient knowledge on specialized fields and ability to describe those information in my own words are very important. Strong communication skills using Japanese, English and sometimes local languages are required in order to build and maintain desirable relationships with senior government officials and intellectuals of various countries.

Needless to say, the role as a manager is vital. I am leading about ten staff members as a team including local staff and international members from Western countries. I always try to assess member’s individual abilities, and produce conditions and systems which maximize their abilities, so that they are able to be proud of working in JCCP. Unifying members with various backgrounds such as nationalities, religions, sexes, and generations into one team under the different cultural environment is a challenging task; however, I can learn a lot of things every day. It is the best situation to develop myself.

Achievement at Nairobi

I have launched two new projects in Somalia, a neighboring country of Kenya. JCCP is the only Japanese NGO having a local site in Somalia. Under the condition with little foundation of activities, we extended our human network and gathered information at first. Next we tried to establish partnerships, develop project operating systems, and ensure safety control in project areas where public security was unstable. We have conducted a part of the project as a monitoring evaluation partner with the International Organization for Migration (IOM). We have also carried out a program promoted by Japan Platform to support victims of the drought and gender based violence.

After one year of conducting projects, we received a letter of appreciation from a local Minister and JCCP activities were acknowledged by the local government. Although frequent shuttling between Somalia and Kenya was hard both physically and mentally, I felt our efforts were rewarded.

Living in Nairobi

A good thing about working in Nairobi is having relaxing and comfortable weekends. For security purpose, I am living in an upper floor apartment with superb view from the balcony. I enjoy cooking cheap, fresh vegetables and fruits, and chatting with friends at a nearby leafy café. I have gotten friendly with salespersons who heartily recommended African folk craft goods at the Maasai Market which opens every Sundays. They taught me about their culture, history and art as well as their neighboring countries’. Since a lot of foreign nationals live in Nairobi, it seems to be a metropolitan city.