What are “Well-done Points”?

This system was implemented in English Immersion Camp (EIC) 2010, with the aim of encouraging EIC participants to contribute to making a difference in the world by using English a lot and doing some simple chores and tasks in EIC. During EIC, students are awarded with a “well-done point” every time they fulfill their task. At the end of the camp, the total number of “well-done points” each student has acquired are totaled up and converted into money by Mr. Makoto Oota, the owner of the camp venue (Biwako Plaza Hotel). This money is then donated to different charities in need of help.

Projects

With the money realized from students’ “well-done points,” the Kumon Global Network Team (GNT) has been able to fund several projects. Below are the projects that we have contributed to so far:

Water Well Project (Sri Lanka)

Five wells were dug to provide clean drinking water for the people of Sri Lanka. This project was initially started by Ms. Saki Shina, who was in the fifth grade of elementary school when she participated in EIC in 2006. During that camp she established a very good relationship with one of the Camp Leaders from Sri Lanka and was able to get to know about the difficult situations people were facing in some of the villages in Sri Lanka. One problem that caught her attention was that there were people who did not have access to clean water in some villages in Sri Lanka. After the camp Ms. Saki was able to get support from her family, friends and well-wishers, and was able to pay for the digging of a village well in Sri Lanka as a present. Ms. Saki, Professor Chiba Akihiro, together with the cooperation of many people, including a Japanese non-governmental organization (NGO) called One World One People (OWOP), visited the successfully completed water well in Sri Lanka.

Below is the link to the website of OWOP:
One World One People（OWOP）http://www.owop.gr.jp/

TERACO (Located in the Tohoku Area of Japan)

TERACO is a self-learning center in Minami Sanriku Town, which is one of the areas that was affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami that hit the Tohoku region in 2011. This center was created to offer children whose place of study was destroyed by the earthquake a new place to study. The project was initiated by Mrs. Ayumi Ogusu, a representative of the non-profit organization (NPO) GrandLines. She first visited the affected area soon after the earthquake with supplies, learning support materials and, finally, established the TERACO self-learning center. Since most of the fishery businesses that many of the children in the area relied on as job opportunities after graduating from junior or senior high school, which they would take over from their parents, had been destroyed, Mrs. Ogusu felt the need to establish the center to help the children that were affected. Her goal was to give them a place where they could study hard and compete with children from other areas in order receive higher education or to get jobs so as to support themselves in the future.

After visiting TERACO, we discovered that Mrs. Ogusu manages the center with her own funds. Therefore, we felt there was a need for financial support to help in the running of center. In 2012 and 2013 we decided to take action and contribute some of the money from students’ “well-done points” to the cost of running the center. Below are links to the websites of TERACO and GrandLines (Japanese only):

TERACO http://www.re-tohoku.jp/tag/teraco
GRANDLINES http://grandlines.net/index.html