On Thursday, 24/5/23, we attended the film screening of " THE ONES LEFT BEHIND" and panel discussion of a sensitive and unspoken topic in Japan.
We are proud to say that HoFu was a proud and passionate sponsor of the film, "THE ONES LEFT BEHIND - The Plight of Single Mothers in Japan", produced by Film Director, Rionne McAvoy, which exposes the lack of government support for single mothers in Japan who are straddling borderline poverty.
There is no law enforcement in Japan for fathers to provide any child support, leaving Japanese single mothers left to do everything on their own to raise their newborns and children. This leaves single mothers with minimal employment opportunities and part-time/non-regular employee only employment contracts, while juggling their careers and raising their families all on their own. Japan has been known to be a patriarchal society so it was obvious and no surprise to me to learn about laws favoring Japanese men over women, no matter how the country tries to promote marketing material to say the opposite.
From listening to the movie screening at the Tokyo American Club for the second time last Thursday, a few things caught my attention. I was quite shocked to learn that most single mothers make about USD19,000 per annum in such an expensive country with taxes that are comparable to that of European cities and some states in the United States. To make things worse, these Japanese single mothers can't even get proper government support or childcare support to the extent that they need, and they get asked a ton of questions by the government administrative staff to find any reasonable doubt before allocating a meager amount of childcare support, if any.
Another part of the film that struck me was when some women couldn't even feed their children rice that was worth about ¥300 (USD 2) to prepare their lunch boxes for school. Hence, the child canteens were introduced in the film. These are non-profit running small organizations that try to protect the children by feeding them and keeping them pre-occupied while their single mothers are at work during the day.
HoFu 's mission is to hire single mothers as one of our target groups to provide "second careers" to single mothers with full-time employment with role sharing responsibilities, employment benefits and a career path in skills that are in-demand today in the professional world ---particularly in R&D and Tech. The idea behind HoFu's social impact mission is to help these single mothers regain confidence and hope in themselves and for their children's futures.
This is where the values, mission and brand of Abundance and HoFu mainly lies. We aim to hire this talent pool (those who are interested in skincare made in Japan) to help us create our own HoFu products later this year in 2023/2024 and beyond. At this time, we are just starting out and building our brand and community while seeking funding to get started.
Yes, women CAN have it all, we just need to provide them the right environment, support and opportunities to thrive again.
HoFu is all about creating high-quality skincare and haircare products from Japan with those who need up-skilling and opportunities to be included in the decisions and product creation of our HoFu products.
For any single mothers out there who are looking to gain new skills through apprenticeships, please contact us as we begin to hire later this year in 2023/2024. Please drop us an email at: connectwithus@alwayshofu.com or contact us here on facebook by dropping us a message.
For any sponsors and corporations (especially in the beauty industry/ R&D in biotech/ cosmetics industry) who would love to get involved, please drop us an email at: connectwithus@alwayshofu.com or contact us here on facebook by dropping us a message.
We would love to share more of what we do!
#diversityandinclusion #singlemomlife #japaneseskincareproduct #socialimpactbusiness #SocialImpactJobs #japaneseculture
From left to right seated - Airi Ryuen, Tokyo Metropolitan Government Politician, Tomiko Nakayama (single mother and filmed in the movie), Professor Akihiko Kato of Meiji University on Japan Economics and Family structure since WW2 (commented on the social dynamics and changes on family life in Japan), Rionne McAvoy (Film Director and Producer), Mayumi Nishida san (single mother and filmed in the movie and now runs the children canteens -- Heart Full Foundation), Dr. Harriet Ocharo (single mother from Kenya now working in Japan and filmed in the movie) & Dr. Greg Story (trainer and owner of Japan franchise for Dale Carnegie Leadership Training)
Everyone else was invited by private invitation to the film screening at the Tokyo American Club in Tokyo on 24/5/23.
To all the single mothers out there,
There is hope and a future for you.
Get in touch with us at HoFu and we will help chart your career path in our community and business to promote HoFu skincare products from Japan to the world!
To my readership,
I hope this was an enlightening and educational one about the single mothers in Japan.
Thank you for continuously learning about what we do at HoFu and for your full support.
Abundantly,
The HoFu team