Project Reach: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan

The Istanbul-based Japan-Turkey Central Asia Friendship Association (JATCAFA) provides scholarships to students from Central Asian nations to study at Turkish Universities. This past July, The Nippon Foundation, which provides the financial backing for the program, invited four of the top scholars to Japan. The students took advantage of the trip to visit a wide variety of sites, including a guide dog training center and a shipyard.

At the guide dog training center

The group, lead by Kyoko Yamaguchi Vrboski, Director-General of the JATCAFA Secretariat, consisted of Aigerim Iskaraeva (Kazakhstan), Dilafruz Abduloeva (Tajikistan), Chiguhi Haniev (Azerbaijan), and Analu Iskendero (Azerbaijan). The four are currently enrolled in universities in Ankara and Istanbul.

Guide dog in training

The group first visited a Japan Guide Dog Association (JGDA) training center, located in Yokohama. The training center specializes in raising and training guide dogs. The students were given a tour of the center by Vice Director Yoshiyuki Yamaguchi, then met with 55-year-old Morio Sugai, an English teacher who uses a guide dog. Since developing vision problems eight years ago, he has kept a black Labrador retriever guide dog named Lindy. Although Lindy is over 10 years old, (the official retirement age), Mr. Sugai still regards her as his personal guide and cares for her like a member of the family. Mr. Sugai provided basic information on guide dogs and answered questions from the students.

Visiting the Hiroshima Peace Park

To experience the economic and cultural sides of Japan, the group also visited a Nissan, the Kao (beauty products) Logistics Center in Kawasaki, a facility operated by the Tsuneishi Shipbuilding Company in Hiroshima, and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. The students were surprised by the efficient, waste-free operations at the facilities run by Nissan and Kao. In Hiroshima, they listened to an atomic bomb survivor recount her experiences.

Learning about Kyotei, which provides the revenue for Nippon Foundation projects

In the years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the number of Central Asian students attending universities in Turkey has increased sharply. In 2003, The Nippon Foundation began providing support, through the Environment Foundation of Turkey, for the best and brightest of these students. In 2005, JATCAFA took over the running of the program, and the foundation has continued to offer scholarships with the aim of establishing a human resource network that spans Central Asia and Japan.