【Photo Diary】 (1) Visit to India

Published on January 7, 2025
I would like to share with you some of the photographs taken during my visit to India from November 19 to 23, 2024, in my capacity as chairman of The Nippon Foundation and WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination.
 
During my stay in New Delhi, I met Health and Family Welfare Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda and Ms. Saima Wazed, WHO’s Regional Director for Southeast Asia, as well as representatives of the Sasakawa-India Leprosy Foundation (S-ILF), the Association of People Affected by Leprosy (APAL) and persons affected by leprosy from a nearby colony.
 
The minister and Ms. Wazed expressed their readiness to go along with our plan to hold an event in Delhi in January 2025 to launch the 20th Global Appeal to End Stigma and Discrimination Against Persons Affected by Leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease.
 
During my four-day visit to India, I also met recipients of The Nippon Foundation’s scholarship programs, such as the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund (Sylff), the Dalai Lama-Sasakawa Scholarship program, and the World Maritime University (WMU) Fellowship program
 
[November 19, New Delhi, India]

 

Photo of New Delhi.
Arriving in the evening in New Delhi, where people had been experiencing toxic air and poor visibility in recent few weeks.
 




 
[November 20, Delhi and New Delhi, India]

 

Photo of New Deli.
The following morning, I woke up to a thick layer of smog as the air quality deteriorated in the metropolitan region. Every year, the capital and northern Indian states battle hazardous air during the colder months of October to January due to plummeting temperatures, smoke, dust, low wind speed, vehicular emissions and crop stubble burning, according to the BBC.
 




Meeting with the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund (Sylff) fellows at Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Meeting with the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund (Sylff) fellows at Jawaharlal Nehru University. The institute is one of the 69 universities and consortia in 44 countries which the foundation has selected for the fellowship program since 1987 to support graduate studies in the humanities and social sciences. To date, about 17,000 people have received fellowships from the fund globally.

I encouraged the students to share information with us even after they graduate on their activities in various fields in India and globally so as to broaden the Sylff network as we grapple with critical challenges facing the world.
 

 

 




Speaking at a ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of the Dalai Lama-Sasakawa Scholarship program.
Speaking at a ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of the Dalai Lama-Sasakawa Scholarship program.

The scholarship began as a matching fund in 2014 when the 14th Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism and the 1989 Nobel peace laureate, and I visited one of India’s approximately 750 leprosy colonies together. His Holiness offered to use his book royalties to help young people living in the colonies to pursue higher education. The Nippon Foundation matched the contribution and the Sasakawa-India Leprosy Foundation (S-ILF) joined as an administrative partner.

(To be continued)

 

 

 

 

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【Photo Diary】 (2) Visit to India

January 7, 2025
I would like to share with you some of the photographs taken during my visit to India from November 19 to 23, 2024, in my capacity as chairman of The Nippon Foundation and WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination. [November 21, New Delhi, India] With Mr. Tarun Das (right), chairman of the Sasakawa-India Leprosy Foundation (S-ILF) during its board meeting. I was particularly pleased to see h