1. Let’s Make Our School Happier Together by Hellos and Smiles!
Uehara Junior High School, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo Japan
The first Design for Change class has begun. Feel and Imagine!
The group of six girls decided to greet all the students with hellos and smiles at the
school gate every morning to promote a happy day.

2. Happiness is not something that you aim for, but it’s a healthy
state to be in when you’re working, studying and/or living. “Being
busy” is a state of people that tend to get trapped in a big city like Tokyo. The
parents, teachers and people around the children are “busy”. And the same
goes for the children and young students. Also being equipped with smart
phones and social media, people have less time for face-to-face, eye-to-eye
warm communication.
In the previous year, 100 students of Uehara Junior High School had taken a
class of “Life”, which is about how their life story begins biologically and how
precious each being is. So this year in the DFC class, we addressed what
they would like to do with their precious lives to make others happy. When
they were asked to feel and to be aware of any problems around them, the
group of six girls noticed that many of the students couldn’t connect
eye-to-eye while greeting with smile.
So they wanted to promote a more organic communication, not digital.
However, they were only allowed to make action “Do” inside school. Then
they discussed how to act on their ideas. And the girls decided to stand at
the school gate every morning to greet everyone with hellos and smiles.
They wanted to initiate friendly eye-to-eye contact addressing “Good
morning (name)” so that each student can feel noticed and welcomed to start
a happy school day.
Bullying is one of the biggest issues in Japanese schools. Some kids suffer
from being ignored, which is one of the many forms of bullying. Even if they
are not the target at the present moment, they might be afraid of becoming
the next one.
The girls’ action was very simple because of the limited conditions, and it
might only be small change. But they felt that more students started to say
hello with a smile, and as the days went by, their voices became brighter and
happier. And most of all the girls felt fulfilled with their own action and
result.