President Hurwitz and Chairman Sasakawa with international student recipients of Nippon Foundation scholarships, faculty mentors, and administrators of Gallaudet University

Gallaudet University for the Deaf and The Nippon Foundation partnership continues to grow apace as Yohei Sasakawa, Chairman of The Nippon Foundation, made a friendly visit to the university campus in Washington D.C. recently to meet with university President Dr. T. Alan Hurwitz and international students attending the school.

Yohei Sasakawa and President Hurwitz.

In a meeting with international students Sasakawa encouraged them to join hands and become success models for their peers, and work with confidence in everyday life.

The partnership between Gallaudet and The Nippon Foundation goes back to 1992 when the latter established a scholarship program for deaf students from developing countries to learn at the university. Since then 160 scholarship students from Africa, Central America, and Asia have studied and graduated from Gallaudet.

Sasakawa’s visit to the Washington D.C. campus was a chance for international scholarship recipients to directly express their gratitude to Sasakawa and The Nippon Foundation. "Scholarships like these are our most powerful service to our students from other countries," said Hurwitz. Without them, he explained, some students--especially those from developing countries--would not be able to attend the University.

Hurwitz and Sasakawa have worked together since the 1990s during Hurwitz's tenure at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He has traveled to Japan five times, and he said Sasakawa’s visit to the campus was “a wonderful opportunity to continue that partnership.”

International students talk with Sasakawa about their hopes for the future

Mary Dakim, a scholarship student from Nigeria expressed her gratitude to Sasakawa saying, “My life has changed because of that scholarship," she said. She paid for her first year of graduate studies in international development out of her own pocket, and was unsure if she would be able to continue for a second year, but the Sasakawa scholarship not only allowed her to stay, but also brought her attention to Nippon Foundation programs in her country that deal with agricultural and social problems.

Dakim hopes to work with the foundation when she returns home, and wants to establish her own non-governmental organization to assist women with disabilities to obtain arable land for farming purposes.
Seven other students from Japan, Lebanon, Nigeria, and Peru also met with Sasakawa during his visit. The students represented the broad support given to Gallaudet by the Nippon Foundation, which assists eight students each year through the Sasakawa International Scholarship and the World Deaf Leadership Scholarship.

Future collaborations between Gallaudet and The Nippon Foundation were discussed. One project in the planning stage is an international policy institute, which could have one branch at Gallaudet and another in Tokyo which would focus on laws that affect people with disabilities.

Another project, which is already underway, is to develop software programs for sign language dictionaries. The software would allow more people to create dictionaries for their native sign languages. For some sign language communities, this could mean the first formal documentation of their language, and a step toward broader recognition of it as a cultural entity.

Sasakawa is presented with a painting from one of the scholarship students

Sasakawa told the gathered students that even though the scholarship program has its limits, his vision was to see graduates participate fully in society and be models for other deaf students and peers in their own countries when they return home.

Two students from Peru, Victor and Aldo, responded saying they are studying business administration because their vision is to set up their own company when they return to Peru.

Three students from Japan studying at Gallaudet said through their spokesperson Megumi Kawakami that their experience at the university had been very empowering because of the educational, counselling, and learning experiences in foreign sign language.
“I want to take a new perspective back to Japan with me to improve the existing framework there," Kawakami said.

Although it was recognized that the environment for the deaf to study has changed a lot since the 1990s, unfortunately social barriers and discriminatory attitudes towards the deaf are still strong, and even the brightest graduates find it difficult to get employment when they return to their home countries.

Still, even though their future paths are unsure and they have anxieties and worries about the road ahead, they have been encouraged by the positive and empowering environment in which they have studied and made many new friends.