Asuka Kashiwase was born in 1994 in Tochigi Japan. She started to practice in classical ballet from 5 years old for 13 years, so always tried to cope with studying and practicing classical ballet. When Ms. Asuka was at junior high school, she belonged to a brass band and then practiced the horn every day. Additionally, she worked as a leader of the brass band when was a 3rd year. In a high school, Ms. Asuka belonged to ESS (English Speaking Society), in the 2nd year, went to Oxford for 2 weeks where she noticed how terrible my English speaking was. So, after coming back to Japan, she started to study English harder. Moreover, she entered an English speech contest to share her experiences in Oxford and won 1st prize. Ms. Asuka, in 2013, entered Tohoku University, faculty of Economics. In the summer of 2014, went to Vietnam for 3 weeks to study economics among ASEAN countries, which was the opportunity for her to start to be interested in Asia. After that visit, she also went to Indonesia and Malaysia for short-term exchanging, moreover, went to Singapore as a participant of Asia-Pacific Student Leaders Forum (APSLF 2015). From September in 2015, she studied abroad in National Taiwan University to learn Chinese and Asian History and then joined 2 student conferences. After this exchanging, Ms. Asuka worked as a Global Campus Supporter in Tohoku University to support students who want to try studying abroad.

How do you motivae the youths living in developing world for the better future?

I would like to motivate the youths to share information related to forums, seminars and student conferences through the internet. When I think my motivation to study and do some projects, my motivation was encouraged by my friends, and some of them were those whom I met in student conferences and international forums.

We can study language and get knowledge by ourselves, however, it is difficult to find companions and to get opportunities to test their efficiency. On the other hand, through forums or conferences, students can encounter amazing people and reconsider themselves. In my experiences, I started to get interested in Asia, history and diplomacy by new friends whom I met in an international forum.

Now, I belong to Global Campus Supporter (GCS) to share information about studying abroad, however GCS’s activities are only toward students who study in my university, so I would like to share information about these opportunities for much more youths.