We had such a wonderful and productive trip to Ivory Coast. Thanks to our team member’s commitment and patient, we have accomplished so much with local community. Throughout this trip, we have met so many people and exchange our ideas to come up with the better approach to create a socially integrated community where elders in Ivory Coast are valued as vital assets for others. Of course, we faced various challenges to overcome but we were able to establish much stronger shared vision among all the people who will be involved in this project through this process.

We were originally planning to organize the ground breaking ceremony on the site, however, it will be postponed to the next year due to various reasons.  This move turned out to be such a positive decision, because we are now working toward to organize not only the ground breaking but also to coordinate the person-centered care training, and aging and caregiving symposium among West African countries to raise awareness of this issue to broader audience next year.

Japanese proverb says “solid ground is formed after rain.” Because we had series of challenges to figure out through this visit, we now have better understanding of what need to be done to move this project forward. Most importantly, all of our team members clearly and strongly share the vision of ibasho, which is to focus on “do what is the best for elders and the people who surround them,” and create a socially integrated and sustainable community which will be built and owned by local people. I was so impressed when few people from Ivory Coast started to explain about our project with such a strong passion during the meeting with Japan Embassy at the last day. At that moment, my heart was filled with joy because this project was already owned by the local community which ibasho team always wanted!

I cannot believe how fortunate I am to be able to work with such wonderful ibasho team and committed local people in Ivory Coast.

Thank you so much!

I will share more stories with you in this blog later…