Details of the Initiative
The Nakano Campus, established in 2013, is open to the local community with the lush greenery of Nakano Shikinomori Park stretching out in front of the school building, and is a campus where students can feel connected to the city.
To contribute to the promotion of local beautification, the Nakano Volunteer Center conducts cleanup activities around the campus with students three to four times a month, including participation in the annual event of Zero Garbage Day hosted by Nakano City.
Although the streets of Nakano are familiar to them, the students seem to get a chance to think about environmental issues through the cleanup activities. In addition, residents sometimes tell their appreciation to the students during the cleanup activities, which helps raise participant’s awareness about beautification. To take advantage of the international nature of the Nakano Campus, we use Japanese and English when recruiting volunteers, and also accept applications from international students. The participating international students were surprised to find that even in Japan, where they have the impression of being clean and litter-free, there is still a lot of litter hidden in plants and gutters, and a large amount of litter picked up after the events.
