On July 23-25, 2001, "Friends of WMU, Japan" and Ship & Ocean Foundation (SOF) held jointly WMU Japan Sasakawa Fellows Forum in downtown Tokyo under support from the Nippon Foundation. With participation of 97 WMU graduates and 48 current students from 28 countries, the Forum aimed at promoting intra-alumni communications and exchanges between the participants and Japanese people concerned with maritime affairs.

　

The World Maritime University (WMU) was established in 1983 by International Maritime Organization(IMO), as an institute to impart advanced education and training to specialist personnel involved with maritime safety and marine environment protection. WMU has since welcomed a large number of students from around the world to its campus in Malmo, Sweden. The present incumbent of the university chancellor is Mr. William A. O'Neil, Secretary General of IMO.

　

　The late Mr. Ryoichi Sasakawa, founder of the Nippon Foundation, initiated WMU Sasakawa Fellowship Program and began awarding fellowships to WMU students as early as 1988 to help produce maritime personnel capable of making a significant contribution to the international maritime community. Following the footsteps of the Nippon Foundation, the Shipbuilders' Association of Japan, Nippon Kaiji Kyokai (NK), the Japanese Shipowners' Association, Nippon Kaiji Kentei Kyokai (NKKK), Oshima Shipbuilding Co. and Namura Shipbuilding Co. awarded fellowships. while NK, the Shipbuilders' Association of Japan and the Cooperative Association of Japan Shipbuilders presented the university with computers for educational use.

　

　Thus the Japanese donors have so far helped 208 students from 36 countries to study at WMU. While Sweden provides the bulk of the overall funding of WMU, the Nippon Foundation, through SOF, is the largest fellowship donor to the university, providing 27 new awards each year to fund a total of 54 students at any given time.

　

　In the early 1990s, the Sasakawa Peace Foundation was entrusted with the administration of the Program and became involved with selection of fellowships recipients. In 1997 the Program's administration was transferred to the Tokyo Foundation (previously named Global Foundation for Research and Scholarship), and once again in April 2001 it was relayed to SOF. Thus, although the Program's administration was taken over by different bodies, the Program itself has been funded by the Nippon Foundation from the outset ¹⁾.

　

　Meanwhile "Friends of WMU, Japan" was set up in 1995 under the chairmanship of Mr. Yohei Sasakawa, President of the Nippon Foundation. Joined by many Japanese people from industry, government and universities, it is a voluntary friendship organization with the mission to maintain and develop friendship and exchange with Japanese-funded WMU students and graduates.

　

SOF organized the Forum with a view to helping the Fellows 2) to forge and maintain a peers network, in the belief that information exchange and mutual cooperation among the Fellows would tend to a further development of international maritime communities. The Forum served as an occasion to promote bonds of friendship between the Fellows and the Japanese parties concerned, which would help such a network to burgeon into a close linkage of exchange and cooperation.

　

　The chief end of the Forum, therefore, was to provide the Fellows with a place to deliberate upon a possible peers network (hereinafter called "the Fellows' Network") and to reach consensus on step-by-step formation of a communications linkage.

　

In the fall of the year 2000, the Secretariat for the Forum was set up at the SOF headquarters to make necessary preparations.

SOF's advisory group on the WMU Sasakawa Fellowship Program designated a chairperson and vicechairpersons for each of three Parallel Sessions and for a Network Workshop, from among the Fellows who expressed their willingness to take on the roles. In nominating chairs and vice-chars, the advisory group sought a well-balanced representation in terms of graduation years and geography. The roles of chairperson and vice-chairperson included the following:

　

　

A chairperson and vice-chairpersons formed a chairing group together with advisers recruited from among WMU staff and Japanese experts in maritime affairs. In addition, at the request of the Secretariat, WMU recommended eight current students for assistants to the chairing groups. The chairing groups members were quick to hold vigorous discussions on the agenda.

Participants chose a Parallel Session to join, and returned to the Secretariat a memo describing the gist of their presentation. The Secretariat received papers from presenters and printed them for distribution to the participants.

The Fellows sent to the Secretariat a memo describing their views on local networks construction, active communications with the Japanese parties concerned, etc. Those who had ever held an alumni gathering in their own countries were asked to report its details.

Country reports were prepared to activate discussions at the Parallel Sessions by giving the participants basic information on each other's countries. Among items included in each report were basic data on the present state of maritime sectors in each country. The participants were requested to provide the Secretariat with such data and information individually or jointly. The reports were printed and distributed as a handout at the Parallel Sessions.

In many countries including the Philippines, Indonesia, China (Shanghai) and Viet Nam, the Fellows contacted one another prior to the Forum, and held a preparatory meeting on country basis, which enabled the participants to represent their alumni bodies at the Forum.