On October 22 the Russian-Japanese Youth Forum on the topic “Partner Cities” started in the online format.
The forum is held for the first time as part of the Russian-Japanese Youth Exchange Plan for 2021 under the auspices of the Year of Russian-Japanese Interregional and Sister City Exchanges 2020-2021 and is aimed at enhancing youth cooperation within the framework of the partnership between the cities of Russia and Japan.
The forum is attended by students, young employees of city administrations and representatives of youth public organizations united in 6 teams representing partner cities or regions: Volgograd – Hiroshima, Leningrad Region – Kyoto Prefecture, Severo-Kurilsk – Nemuro, Vladivostok – Shimane Prefecture, Kholmsk – Kushiro, St. Petersburg – Osaka.
Opening the forum, Denis Ashirov, the Director of the Department of State Youth Policy and Educational Activities of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, emphasized: “The development of youth exchanges is one of the priority tasks in the framework of the Year of Russian-Japanese interregional and twinning exchanges 2020-2021 and an integral part of Russian-Japanese relations in general. It is necessary to maintain a constant and direct dialogue between young people, to increase the level of youth participation in the development of their cities and the development of sister cities. We hope the forum will become a traditional platform for solving these problems.”
Wataru Ishikawa, the Head of the Department of Japanese-Russian Exchanges of the Department of European Countries of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Japan, said: “I hope this forum will give impetus to the further development of mutual understanding between Japan and Russia and will contribute to the emergence of various “connecting bridges” between our countries. New challenges in the form of the coronavirus pandemic still do not allow us to communicate at the same level as before in person, so we continue to exchange online. Despite this, the importance of mutual exchange and understanding between youth of our neighboring countries, Japan and Russia, remains unchanged, and we are very pleased that today we can host this event online with the participation of many representatives of partner cities.”
As part of the program of the first day of the forum introductory reports were made by the Chairman of the Committee on Youth Policy and Interaction with Public Organizations of St. Petersburg Bogdan Zastavny, an employee of the Department of International Relations, Business and International Promotion of the Bureau of Economic Strategy of the Government of Osaka Keisuke Yamada, Secretary General of the International Center for Wetlands, Kushiro Yoshikatsu Kikuchi.
In addition, video presentations of the teams and their cities as well as the acquaintance of participants were presented.
On the second and third days participants of the forum will exchange experience as part of the foresight session, develop ideas for the development of their cities in the field of culture, environmental protection, work with children and youth and as a result create the image of the “City of the Future”.
The event is organized by MIREA – Russian Technological University acting as the Russian-Japanese Coordination Bureau for Youth Exchanges together with the Japanese-Russian Youth Exchange Center (Japan) with the support of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation and the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Russian-Japanese youth cooperation is carried out in accordance with the Agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of Japan on the establishment of the Russian-Japanese Youth Exchange Commission of March 15, 1999.
