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YUAI

ÖJAB’s Sister Organization in Japan

The History of Cooperation between ÖJAB and the YUAI Foundation spans several Decades.

In a meeting with Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, who was visiting the opening ceremony of an Europahaus-Wien residential building in 1961, ÖJAB’s founding president Dr. Buchwieser learned about a Japanese organization for global “fraternity”, that was pursuing similar goals as ÖJAB: The YUAI Foundation. In 1963 there was a first encounter between the two organizations as YUAI sent a delegation to Vienna and another two years later in 1965 the both of them signed an agreement to officially become sister organizations and closely work together in future enterprises.

ÖJAB and YUAI are sister organizations to this day. The agreement of cooperation was stipulated and renewed in an anniversary visit in June 2015, when YUAI sent a delegation of its management team to Vienna.

The YUAI Foundation (Koueki Zaidan Houjin YUAI) takes its principles from Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi’s ethics of international connection and unity and is headed by the Hatoyama family, a prominent family of Japanese politicians. They campaign across party lines for international understanding, humanity and compassion.

  • Logo YUAI

The YUAI Foundation (Koueki Zaidan Houjin YUAI) takes its principles from Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi’s ethics of international connection and unity and is headed by the Hatoyama family, a prominent family of Japanese politicians. They campaign across party lines for international understanding, humanity and compassion.

 

The named persons stand in a row, behind an ÖJAB flag. Mr. Kawate and Mr. Schüssler hold a Galsfigur with friendship engraving in hands.Delegation from YUAI visiting Austria to celebrate the 50th anniversary in June 2015. From left to right: Shouichiro Kawate (Manager managing director, YUAI), Dr. Monika Schüssler (Manager managing director, ÖJAB), Wilhelm Perkowitsch (President, ÖJAB), Yukio Hatoyama (President, YUAI), Eduard Schüssler (Honorary president, ÖJAB), Josef Wimmer (Deputy manager deputy managing director, ÖJAB)

Cooperation for decades

Since establishing their bond in the early 1960s, YUAI and ÖJAB have been in close contact and have organized many different youth exchange events between Austria and Japan. The YUAI’s international youth conferences and the annual singing competition hosted in Tokyo are particularly noteworthy. For the YUAI singing contest, that took place annually from 1991 to 2016, young artists would perform a classical German or Japanese song and the winner would receive the opportunity to show their skills at the “Traditional song- and chamber music night”, a charity concert in Vienna organized by ÖJAB. The donations gathered from this concert would go to ÖJAB’s development cooperation projects to support children in Burkina Faso. In return, one or two young musicians among ÖJAB members would go to Japan.

Another project that came into being thanks to the cooperation between ÖJAB and YUAI is the Austrian-Japanese Youth Exchange (ÖJJ). This association located in Vienna organizes youth exchanges between Austria and Japan under the guidance of ÖJAB since the 1970s.
 

Japanese Japanese students visiting Austria in 2022.visiting Austria in 2019. Photo: Yasuaki KimotoJapanese students visiting Austria in 2022.

Recent activities

Since 2017 the youth exchange program is continued in a different way: About annually six Japanese students visit Austria for just over a week. Apart from a general cultural exchange during their trip they learn about social challenges Europe currently faces. They gain insight to ÖJAB’s various fields of activity, for instance care of the elderly, working with refugees and educational facilities such as the BPI.

ÖJAB and YUAI were able to continue their joint youth exchange program in September 2022: A small group of Japanese students visited Austria and two ÖJAB employees visited YUAI in Japan. Further details about these two trips can be found in Senf’s 04/2022 issue (only in German). In March 2023 ÖJAB welcomed yet another group of young Japanese, this time a group of 12, who enjoyed a varied and informative trip program. More details will be published in issue 20/2023 of Senf (only in German).