KYOTANABE, Kyoto -- Eight members of Doshisha University's rugby club in Kyotanabe, Kyoto Prefecture, have left for India to participate in volunteer activities for the Japan International Cooperation Agency. Before leaving Japan, they paid a courtesy call to Mayor Takashi Kamimura at Kyotanabe City Hall in early February to express their enthusiasm. The students aim to increase the popularity of rugby and through various activities encourage the healthy development of the youth in India.
In March last year, the university signed a cooperation memorandum with JICA Kansai to cooperate in the dispatch of overseas volunteers. Through this, the rugby club members were sent abroad for the first time to the Indian Rugby Football Union for one month from Feb. 17.
The eight members are a mixture of students in their sophomore and junior years. "Learning about a different culture, living in a place with rules that are different from Japan and interacting with the local people will be a great experience," Kamimura said. Junior Saito Hibiki said, "While teaching rugby, I want to return to Japan with the cultural spirit that I will have learned from living in India."
The students will teach rugby to young people at a private university in eastern Odisha state, while staying in dormitories.
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