[1st Meeting] Yawata Children's Conference started!
Kicks off meeting for 2025
The first Yawata Kids' Conference of the year began safely and successfully! Even though it was raining on June 14, 2025, many kids still came to the event. The venue was full of energy and excitement!
Opening
At the opening of the children's conference, Prof. Inaba from Ritsumeikan University gave a speech.
"The Yawata Children's Conference is an important event where children from Yawata City's schools come together and present their ideas for making the city better to the mayor. Similar initiatives are spreading across the country, but this year marks the 22nd year of the Yawata Children's Conference. It is a special event that has continued for a very long time.
I have been involved in this activity since the first year, and have seen many times how children's free-spirited ideas bring about gradual change in the town.
We are very happy that elementary, junior high and high school students, as well as supporting university students, came together again this year. Among them, there were some elementary school students who came up with creative ways to guide people around the venue, even though it was their first time participating. We are very excited to see what unique ideas they will come up with. Also, some of the junior high and high school students have participated again, saying, "We want to do this again!" It is very encouraging to see the number of such reliable members on the rise. Over the coming year, let's all have fun exchanging ideas and come up with lots of ideas to invigorate Yawata City!"
[1st Children's Conference] Geeting from Prof. Inaba ((or "Kyoju") 🏫
Ice-breaking!
After the opening, the children's conference committee members split into groups and began interacting with each other. First, they had time to get to know each other through self-introductions and questionnaires.
Filling out a questionnaire about Yawata City📝
(An illustration generated by AI from the original photo)
Afterwards, each group played a fun ice-breaking game.
The high school student group had a lively discussion in the "NG Word Game," where the students were careful about words they might accidentally say.
[1st Children's Conference] High school students have a scary conversation about taboo words🗣️
The junior high school group played a brain-boosting game called "ito," in which students express numbers based on a theme and arrange them in order of largest to smallest.
[First Children's Meeting] Middle school students communicate in the “ito” group♪]
In the elementary school group, groups A, B, and C joined together and all participated in a fruit basket activity! The children were seen moving energetically around in a circle that filled the room, looking very happy and smiling.
[[First Children's Meeting] All elementary school students played fruit basket.]🍎
Monster lottery game!
At the end of the children's conference, there was a lot of excitement with a "Monster Lottery" planned by a fourth-year university student from Inaba's seminar!
[1st Children's Conference] Drawing the Monster Lottery👾
It was a fun and exciting time, with the first, second and third prizes awarded with luxurious sweets. After all the children had drawn their lottery tickets, there was still a first prize left... and at the very end, a university student unexpectedly won first prize! lol
Keep coming up with ideas!
At the first children's conference, the university students and the children were able to become closer through games and conversation. In the future, we will hold more serious discussions and work together to create "proposals to make Yawata City a better place."
So, what kind of unique proposals will emerge this year? I'm already looking forward to the next conference!