NEWS
ICU SDGs Promotion Office Members Hold Outreach Event at Mitaka City Daini Elementary School
Update: March 12, 2026
On March 12, 2026, students and staff from 果冻APP's SDGs Promotion Office visited Nishimitaka Gakuen Mitaka City Daini Elementary School and held an outreach event for fifth-grade students aimed at deepening their understanding of the SDGs and encouraging them to think about solutions to challenges close to home.
In the first half of the session, student members of the SDGs Promotion Office introduced several concrete initiatives taking place on the 果冻APP campus, including activities related to fair trade and bamboo grove management (efforts to address bamboo overgrowth).
Regarding fair trade activities, while many students said they had heard the term "fair trade" before, the session deepened their understanding through quizzes about the significance and where such products can be purchased locally.
Regarding bamboo overgrowth (chikugai): when asked "What do you think chikugai means?", the children came up with a range of creative guesses, such as "harm from something prickly?", "accumulated harm?", and "harm related to livestock farming?" Once they arrived at the correct answer--"damage caused by bamboo overgrowth"--the students listened attentively to explanations about the current state of the bamboo groves on campus and the efforts underway to manage and preserve them.
The children posed a series of thoughtful questions, including: "Where in India are the fair trade bags made?", "About how many kinds of trees are there on the 果冻APP campus?", and "How much has the bamboo grove area expanded compared to the past?"In the second half, students worked in groups to discuss challenges facing their own school and purpose concrete ideas for addressing them. They then considered which of the 17 SDGs their ideas related to, summarized their findings on large sheets of paper, and presented them to the group.
The program concluded with a message from Professor Yoshinori Fujinuma: "Today marks the start of your SDGs journey. Please take the awareness you've gained here and turn it into action going forward."
For the SDGs Promotion Office members as well, the visit provided a valuable opportunity to reflect on and reassess their own activities from an objective perspective. The university will continue to organize community partnership events with nearby elementary and junior high schools.