Two students from our university won awards in the 6th annual SDGs "Leave No One Behind" Essay and Illustration Contest for FY2025.
In the 6th SDGs "Leave No One Behind" Essay and Illustration Contest for FY2025, organized by Nogezaka Glocal, Arisa Maezawa, a third-year student in the Faculty of International Liberal Arts, and Kazuki Ichiyanagi, a first-year student in the Faculty of Economics, both received the Outstanding Work Award in the essay category.
This contest was launched in 2020 with the aim of broadly disseminating the free ideas and proposals of young people to society, based on the fundamental principle of the SDGs, "leaving no one behind."
Maezawa, who won the award, said, "I am honored to receive this award. Currently, I am on an exchange program in Kenya, where I have visited people suffering from sand flea disease through the student NGO "Waka Waka Kenya" that I founded. I was shocked by the reality of poverty that was beyond imagination and the cries of people who were ignored by everyone, and I submitted this work because I felt I had to tell them about it. The idea of 'leaving no one behind' is beautiful, but in reality, I am arguing that it remains just an ideal. I believe that this work will help more people learn about sand flea disease, which is little known, and that more people will empathize with the suffering of the patients, which will bring hope to those who have been left behind."
Ichiyanagi said, "The highlight of my work is the frank description of how my values, which once looked down on people who couldn't make an effort, changed through failures and interactions with those close to me. This realization, in which I re-examined the meaning of the phrase 'leaving no one behind' from the perspective of social inequality and differences in choices, has also led to my determination to study at Soka University. While I am genuinely happy to have won the award, I also feel a sense of regret because I was aiming for a higher prize. I will take this recognition of my thoughts as encouragement and continue to work even harder in the future."