Impressions of the Third World Water Forum

Wednesday 19^th of March

Today is the BIG day for us: in the morning the CEO panel session will present their results and in the afternoon we have our own workshop ‘Translating water awareness into concrete action’. At 8.30 we will meet Mr Washizawa and Mr Higashida. All activities will take place in Osaka so we have to leave the hotel at 6.30. In advance we thought the WWF-3 would also be a bit of a holiday. It is Wednesday already and the Forum turned out to be an incredibly tough job, however, it is a very inspiring too and not unpleasant at all.

When we arrive at the Osaka Cube (Exhibition Hall) we still have a lot of little details to take care of, but when Mr Washizawa and Mr Higashida arrived with others Jaycees. Mr Washizawa needs to be introduced to the CEO panel to exchange the last details. We take pictures of him and talk with Mr Higashida about his participation in our session in the afternoon. Fortunately we have time to drink a cappuccino together before the CEO panel session starts. And what a session it turned out to be!

During the CEO panel presentation the results of three years of work of 13 CEOs in business and industry were presented. You could clearly see that they used professionals to prepared wonderful audiovisuals. The CEOs (e.g. from Unilever, Shimazdu, Thames Water, Heineken, Rabobank) started initiatives in five themes. The project team working on Awareness created guidelines for educational instruments and developed a Water Toolkit for children, which is officially launched at the WWF-3. JCI is a main partner in this Water toolkit project. Mr Washizawa was representative of JCI in the panel session.

We were excited to hear Mr Washizawa address the audience with a wonderful statement of leadership and action. We summarize the highlights of it for you:

JCI will ask all its members to stimulate and promote water education – especially the Water Toolkit – in their individual countries. Also it was said that “the organization (JCI) operates on the premise that the development of individual character and personality will result in communities that are better developed and, eventually, in a more peaceful world. The project of CEO-panel fits this purpose in more than one way. First of all because education is the basis of all advancement and secondly because it offers JCI-members around the world to act on their social responsibility to create positive change.”

Afterwards we heard that he was on Japanese television.

After the CEO-panel we were invited for a lunch, ordered by mr. Higashida. We ate a typical dish ‘baked ale with rice, soup and pickles (vegetables in vinegar) with members of Junior Chamber Osaka and Osaka prefecture. It was delighted. A very nice talk and some laughter complete this pleasant lunch.

At 2.30 we left to go to our session room for the rehearsal. To our surprise the rehearsal could not take place because the room was unexpectedly used. The technician and session assistant were so involved with us that they came spontaneously with a lot of chairs so that we could prepare, although the lobby was crowded.

Then the moment was there: our workshop starts. Mr. Higashida did the introduction for us. An example of perfect co-operation between JC Japan and JC the Netherlands.

The exercises were:

1. Discussing the themes given and choose one of them;
2. Discuss all possibilities solutions for this theme;
3. Make a project plan: determine a goal, activities to achieve this goal, budget and time schedule.

It was really a surprise that it works the way it did. Moreover the participants had fun and were involved thinking over the questions. The result was that they all pledged for 5 minutes more to ‘finish’ their project plan as best as possible.

The keyword of the session pointed out that you can activate passive knowledge about water in directing the discussion around themes and exercises. This is showed by the project plans made in less than 45 minutes (be aware that they are no water-professionals and have to agree on goals and actions).

The more concrete (small) the project plan is the more results can be expected. Main reasons are that the problems you cope with are simple to overcome and the involved risks are small (when big investments are needed, you hesitate longer and longer). And of course when a project results are good, in general people are getting enthusiastic. And that is what you need: new believers are born and become partners in action.

Conclusion was: we can achieve more than we think we are capable of!

Washi at CEO-panel

After our session we run to the station of Osaka because the moment we left, the reception of the CEO-panel started in Kyoto. Unfortunately but logically we missed the reception but were in time to join the wonderful buffet in the Okura Hotel. We talked with a lot of people, enjoyed ourselves with listening to wonderful Japanese songs. The one about the ‘Sakra’ (cherry) - especially about its flavour - was very nice. One Japanese man joins the singer and was softly singing along. Not exactly at the right tone but still good to listen to.

The CEO of Shimadzu, who challenged us to join his clapping session, did the closing ceremony of the CEO-buffet. Everyone joined him with great pleasure.