What follows is a copy of an article in Tokyo Green Blog posted in February 2010.

David Howenstein and JAMBO International Center

Recently, on a late winter afternoon, I was finally able to catch up with David Howenstein for a sit-down at the Takadanobaba Starbucks. David, who comes from St. Louis and has been in Japan for 20 years, is the founder and director of JAMBO International Center located here in Tokyo. He started JAMBO (which means “Greetings!” in Swahili) in 1996 to “encourage people to reconnect with nature while helping others.” The original format was to aid Africa through sponsoring charitable activities, and to experience nature.

Since then it has evolved into a “hiking and helping” format, which David sums up as Having Fun Doing Good. He explained that people in Japan often envision volunteerism as “serious” and not much fun, and that was something he’s set out to correct.

David’s vision stresses environmental interaction on three levels: natural, social and internal.
To accomplish this JAMBO holds around six events every month.
These include one or two charity events, three hikes, and one or two environmental restoration events where participants can experience volunteerism hands-on.

Environmental restoration events where JAMBO members and friends can take part include river and ocean cleanup with organizations like Arakawa Clean Aid (http://www.cleanaid.jp/index.html). Other work involves cooperation with various sato-yama projects and the following three restoration organizations:

Shu(http://www.shu.or.jp/profile/profile.html)
FoEJapan (http://www.foejapan.org/satoyama/activity/index.html), and JUON (http://juon.univcoop.or.jp/).

If you’re looking for a way to make a difference and get involved, check out JAMBO. Guests and new members are always welcome.

http://www.JAMBOinternational.com/

And thanks to David Howenstein for taking time to share his vision.