ETIC provides information, education and networking resources to assists young and potential social entrepreneurs throughout Japan. The core members of ETIC and GLI have been meeting and communicating on various issues since late 1990s, and GLI members co-organised ETIC's recent visit to social entrepreneurs in UK last December.

Like in Japan, more and more Chinese young people are showing great interests in social entrepreneurship as a powerful tool to make the world a better place as well as to explore a new, creative life style. GLI have over 100 networkers in China, half are under 35 years old. Both ETIC and GLI believe that there is a lot to share between the two countries.

On the second day, Takuji Hiroishi, senior fellow of ETIC, and Atsuko Suzuki, secretary general of ETIC, joined the fourth round meeting of the Social Enterprise Working Group in Beijing together with GLI advisor Yanyan Li and GLI executive director Fan Li.

Hiroshi made a presentation on the background and development of Japanese social entrepreneurship. Chinese delegates raised lots of questions regarding the environment and government policy on social enterprises in Japan.

Mr. Zhongliang Ma, leader of the working group, commented that ETIC's view on the role of social enterprise as not only a means to solve social problems in an efficient way, but also as a demonstration of new values and new life styles, can be a very good reference for China. Japan and China share lots of similarity regarding culture, background and government-civil society relationship.
 
Later in the evening, ETIC had a very active discussion with ten young GLI Networkers at GenXiang Tea House hosted by GLI Networker Zhao Yi.
 
The next day, ETIC visited two social enterprises in Beijing: Fu Ping School provides job training for rural women, while Sun Village is the only organisation in China that offers care and education to children under eighteen whose parents are in prison.

ETIC traveled to Shanghai on the 20th of January and immediately visited Luo Shan Community Centre in Pu Dong District. Jianrong Wu, secretary general of Shanghai YMCA and co-founder of Luo Shan, welcomed the visitors warmly. Wu was impressed by ETIC's activities in Japan. He also commented that the booklet by ETIC that introduced 32 stories of social entrepreneurs in Japan can be a very good 'text book' for Chinese NGOs.

In the morning of 21st, ETIC joined the GLI Networkers' Salon and made an hour-long presentation on ETIC's projects and the rise of Japanese social entrepreneurs. 21 people attended this event including 17 GLI Networkers in Shanghai and 5 Japanese who currently work or study in Shanghai. Chinese participants made quite a few suggestions on the next steps for ETIC-GLI collaboration. According to the result of the survey, 95% of the participants think the event is 'very helpful and useful'.

Hiroishi of ETIC commented that this visit has created a very good foundation for continuing China-Japan social entrepreneur exchanges as they have seen with their own eyes the passion and needs in China for the first time. GLI will have a follow up meeting with ETIC in Tokyo early next week.

Fan Li
GLI Executive Director Asia-Pacific & USA