Thank you everyone!
皆様どうも有り難う御座いました！
We would like to thank all participants, helpers, supporters, interns and internship-seekers for joining our first official Internship Japan event on November 12th in the Asakusa Culture Tourism Information Center.
We opened our doors to our valued participants at 7pm. The first half an hour we spent welcoming our guests and networking. To give the event a promising start, Hamaguchi Takehiko (92) carried out a motivational kanpai!
Our team member Darrin openend the event officially and introduced everyone in the team. Verena and Katsu then took over and gave a bilingual presentation about our background, mission, current status and support we need to accomplish our goals. This was followed by two very interesting and personal speeches by our guest speakers, talking about their very own experiences with interns in the past. After that, everyone spend the rest of the evening talking, networking, discussing and enjoying the drinks and snacks. It was a great atmosphere and as you can see in the group photo above, we also had a lot of fun together!
Here is what our team would like to share with you:
Verena
We had a successful founding event. Current interns, internship-seekers, company executives as well as supporters and friends like politician Noemi Inoue joined us and made it a great evening. After our bilingual presentation and valued guest speakers, we enjoyed networking with drinks and snacks. Several new opportunities came up and we made our first supportive members too.
Thank you guests, thank you helping hands, thank you team! And special thanks to our guest speakers, Michael Penn (Shingetsu News Agency) and Andrew Woolner (Yokohama Theatre Group), who’s speech underlined exactly what we are standing for and how important our mission is. They already had interns from us and reported about their experience.
From now on we are planning to do networking events like this, our first one, about 6 times a year. Please make sure to visit us again!
Darrin
The founding event was a very memorable and happy achievement. I was very impressed with the turnout and the quality of the participants. Our corporate supporters were extremely enthusiastic to speak to us and our wonderful youth who are looking for an opportunity to get an internship. The youth surely had an excellent opportunity to meet HR leaders and presidents of major corporations. I expect some good relations were made and future correspondence will continue.
Thank you to all the support staff for making a welcoming atmosphere and to all who stand beside us. We are now at the start line. Please continue to watch and support us as much as possible.
Michael
It felt amazing to see months of planning come a reality and turn into a great success. I personally would like to thank everyone who joined and supported us that evening. We made a big step this day, yet we are still at the beginning. We need to raise more awareness for the benefits of the internship system, especially among Japanese companies and organizations. Definite opportunities have to be created and promoted. Watch out for more, for there is definitely more to come in 2015!
Katsu
I am surprised to see how many people are interested in our mission, which importance all the members of our association have recognized anew. I do appreciate the guests and speakers joining the event.
Honoka
It was so exciting being able to witness our very first event successfully finished. I was happy to feel such an enthusiasm for the good cause, which many of our supporters had contributed so much to. Thank you everyone who showed that spirit! Looking forward to see you again and also meet new friends at our next event.
If you are intersted in joining, please see our 2015 Membership Info (English) / ２０１５年 会員案内 (日本語).
Below you can see some impressions of the evening. See all photos on Facebook here.
