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Post date: Jan 1, 2019 9:39:18 AM
Awareness Raising for Changes
1. Introduction
For the promotion of diversity and human rights in society, discrimination is the most challenging issue and changes are important for the minorities to live comfortably in the society. From the "discrimination" level to the stage in which "changes" can be achieved, many steps need to be taken, and we need to move through many steps in between those steps to achieve the goal of making change. The UNHCR mention that "Garnering support for the global goals of the Global Strategy can lead to changes in public opinion and in turn to legislative and other needed changes. National initiatives may be reinforced by regional and global advocacy. Experience demonstrates that effective campaigning and awareness-raising strategies should be evidence-based, have a clear aim and develop a clear message to be communicated to the public and decision-makers. They should also involve those whose rights they seek to promote and protect."1
One of the reasons for people in the community to discriminate against minorities is because of their lack of knowledge about them. “Awareness Raising” can involve advocacy (e.g. active: advocate the use of condoms); or involve no advocacy, just ‘informative’ (e.g. non-active: police will be checking for drunk drivers during this holiday period).“Advocacy” is the promotion of an idea, to influence thoughts and/or behaviors, often on behalf of another person or group.2 As an approach to achieve changes for equality and equity in the community, Awareness Raising and Advocacy are considered as important factors.
In this report, I will mainly focus on the importance of awareness raising for changes. I will first describe some examples of discrimination in Japanese society, then I will discuss some solutions for these kinds of discrimination, mainly using the aforementioned awareness raising. After studying various evidence, I would like to move on to the main question of this report "How can we make an effective awareness raising campaign at the university level in Japan?".
2. Case Studies of Discrimination that Minorities Face in Japanese Society
A.Indiscriminate Discrimination in Housing
Rent application denial is an indiscriminate form of discrimination that is committed by both real estate agents and house owners against foreign tenants. Many of the properties wrote "No Foreigner" and sometimes the application for housing was being denied without a specific reason. “Communication issues between tenants and landlords or with neighbors often lead to deeper problems,” said a spokesman for a strategic business unit at Housecom Corp.’s headquarters in Tokyo’s Minato Ward, Toshiyuki Nagai. “In reality, even if you are highly skilled, with money, with a good job, there’s at least 60 or 70 percent … of the apartments that remain out of reach just because I am a foreigner,” said Ahmed,30, a Ph.D. holder in engineering who works for an international company in Tokyo.3 The. 1 in 4 foreign residents face this kind of barrier to the most basic of human needs, a place for shelter and rest.4. 5.
B.Job Hunting Discrimination
In the job hunting procedure, there are two main issues that foreign student have to face. First, as Murai and Oka report in their article (2015), the recruitment aptitude exam (made for native Japanese speakers to demonstrate their basic academic skills, including a language test requiring strong vocabulary) is required for international students to hunt a job.3 The second issue is the stereotyped systems of companies. "The screening process is not fair for students from overseas"3, said a 22-year-old student from South Korea who attends Waseda University. “(The test) doesn’t seem to assess the Japanese proficiency needed for the actual work,” she continued, adding that companies should have a face-to-face meeting before screening so they can evaluate international students’ actual language proficiency and their personalities more fairly.
From these case studies, it can be concluded that discrimination exists because of the community and it’s the responsibility of the community to protect others. This is because the inside community group (Japanese citizens in Japan) does not understand about the outside group (minorities in Japan). For this reason, awareness raising, which eventually will lead to less discrimination, is needed to understand different kinds of people living in the same community.
3. Factors in Raising Awareness
A. Importance of Involvement
To prevent further discrimination, Involvement can be an important factor. Involvement is also one of the factors of awareness raising. It can alert people about inequalities in the society, aencourage mutal understanding, be an ally, and start movements for change. The following quote is from Confucius, circa 450BC: "Tell me, and I will forget. Show me, and I may remember. Involve me, and I will understand." This shows the importance of involvement for every actor to achieve certain changes.
B.Awareness raising and behavioral change
A document on awareness-raising and behavioral change prepared for the Oxfam International Youth Parliament in 2005 draws in part on research into HIV/AIDS programs undertaken by the Burnet Institute in Australia. This work identifies five distinct phases of behavioral change:
Pre-contemplation
Contemplation
Preparation
Action
Maintenance
The Oxfam authors paraphrase these stages as:
Knowledge (pre-contemplation) - demonstrating awareness of the desired behaviours;
Approval (contemplation) - voicing endorsement and support for the behaviours;
Intention (preparation) - making the decision to adopt the behaviours, whether conditionally or unconditionally;
Practice (action) - committing to the behaviours in a consistent and sustainable way;
Advocacy (maintenance) - encouraging others to adopt the behaviours and encouraging them in their intention and practice.
4. Awareness Raising Procedure
There is a certain procedure of Awareness Raising that can make changes in society. According to Richard Sayers, the effective awareness raising process needs to meet and maintain mutual needs and interests of the actors involved. This means that all the parties involved (for example: Japanese and foreign people living in Japan, homosexual and heterosexual people, people who are religious or are not religious, etc.) need to be content with the outcome of the possible change. The following procedure is the awareness raising procedure from the report of Richard Sayers.4
The Awareness-Raising Procedure
Awareness raising can make changes.
There is an opportunity for new information/new experiences
An information exchange takes place
Information exchange can improve mutual understanding
mutual understanding can develop competencies and skills necessary to enable changes, and attitudes and behaviors can be changed.
5. How Effective is Awareness Raising?
Here are some Awareness Raising examples and the kinds of changes they made and how effective they were.
A.The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
The Sydney Mardi Gras is a successful example of awareness raising for the Rights of the LGBTIQ community in Australia. It has promoted gay and lesbian culture, along with encouraging action against Australia’s stringent anti-homosexuality laws. According to my field work experience from workshops in Sydney, most LGBTIQ people in Australia let others acknowledge who they are and what are their rights, what they should do to protect their life and their family so that NGOs and community allies advocate properly to the government to ensure their safety in the community. But there is still a lot of homophobia and transphobia from individuals.
B.Let’s Move campaign by Michelle Obama
The campaign was aim to ensure that kids got healthier meals at school in America. Rather than promoting the health dangers, Michelle Obama focused ongetting kids to drink more water. Rather than vilifying the food industry, Obama worked with industry to reduce fat, sodium, and sugar in foods, changinghow people see what they eat, with new food labeling laws. As the result, childhood obesity is no longer increasing among children between the ages of 2 and 5.5 Also the childhood obesity rate even dropped by nearly half. In this campaign Michelle Obama made a Youtube video to raise awareness. She also included this campaign as a part of health education in schools.
6. How can we make a right awareness raising campaign in the university level?
A.College Awareness Raising Campaign in America
Amnesty International put a week-long program entitled "Rise for Refugees" program, with a series of events, along with a poster series, in the college community in various college campuses in United States. They started with a film screening of "Human Flow", a documentary that highlights the extent and impact of the refugee crisis and the following day, the organization placed balloons throughout campus and photo series on the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh. They followed up with a campaign selling refugee awareness merchandise and providing students with information regarding the refugee crisis. The series ended with a final poster suggesting ways in which students can get involved in refugee aid by promoting involvement in Paper Airplanes, an organization that provides tutoring services to refugee children via Skype, and encouraging them to sign the United Nation's #WithRefugees Campaign.
B.University Level Campaign in Japan
There are also various campaigns for minorities (mainly refugees) in Japan. One of the famous campaigns in Japanese universities is M4R (Meal for Refugees). The M4R campaign is a campaign to raise funds for refugees from students' food purchases. Various dishes from refugees' countries are sold in schools' cafeteria. 20yen from each meal is donated to refugees in Japan via JAR (Japan Association for Refugees). This campaign started in 2013 and has been held in over 50 high schools and universities in Japan. This campaign is considered as a part of Awareness Raising through food and culture. There are also many other different awareness raising campaigns conducted by students in Japan.
7. Conclusion/Summary
In this research, I have learned deeply about how important awareness raising is for changes in society. And I also got a chance to think thoroughly about the causes of issues, approaches, case studies and procedures. Recently, the Japanese government approved a new policy to accept many workers from foreign countries. So, more and more issues will follow and various changes will be necessary for all the people living in this society. As a university student, I would like to think and plan about more effective awareness campaigns in the near future.
8. References
1.UNHCR Global Strategy Beyond Detention
2.Meeting the challenge (proven practices for human trafficking prevention)
3.International students face job hunting hurdles in Japan
4.Principles of awareness raising by Richard Sayers
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000147637
5.Let's Move campaign
https://letsmove.obamawhitehouse.archives.gov
6.Japan Association for Refugees
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