Chie Murakami and Tomone Kawai, the Director General and the Deputy Director General for Diamonds for Peace, participated in the Panasonic NPO Support Fund for Africa Award Ceremony held at Panasonic center in Tokyo on 24th January 2018.
In the morning, we participated in presentations of progress reports by NPOs supported by this fund in 2017. The Panasonic Support Fund provides funding to Japanese NPOs in order to improve their organizational capacity for publicizing their missions. It was interesting to learn how each NPO has implemented different publicity campaigns with varying results. We were especially impressed by the presentation of Ms. Fukuda from the NPO Comment-Niger. Comment-Niger published a picture story book on beautiful places and people in Niger. They held exhibitions in several cities in Japan to display the pictures used for the book and thousands of people showed up to the exhibition.
The award ceremony was held at the start of the afternoon session. Panasonic NPO Support Fund supports the NPOs working in the fields of children, environment and Africa, and it was a joint ceremony of the three fields.
The representative of each organization proceeded to the stage and received a notice of funding. Chie appeared with African dress. It is a great honor to be an awarded member of this support fund community that has strengthened organizational capacity of publicity of many famous Japanese NPOs for 17 years. We reaffirmed our determination to make our own publicity project successful.
The Strengthening Organizational Capacity Forum began followed by the award ceremony. Exemplary previously funded projects were introduced. We were impressed by a presentation of Mr. Onimaru from Terra Renaissance, a Japanese NGO operating in Africa to facilitate the reintegration of former child soldiers. They received donations and grants totaling about 15 million Yen in 2005, only 4 years after being established in 2001. We observed that they have not only a well-thought out plan but also the determination to expand their activities so rapidly. We have a lot to learn from them.
After that, a staff from Panasonic made a presentation on a social impact evaluation (SROI: Social Return on Investment) of a past funded project. We believe this method of evaluation can be integrated in our project in Liberia.
Going forward, Diamonds for Peace has plans to restructure its website in English after learning social marketing and NGO publicity with the funds awarded from the Panasonic NPO Suport Fund.
Front photo:Chie and Tomone(DFP)