The great ethnic and cultural diversity in our team is representative of the diversity of ASIJ itself, it being an international school. We have members who are culturally and linguistically fluent in English, Japanese and Mandarin, with further connections to Korea, Vietnam and more. This has enabled us to access communities across the globe in our educational outreach and professional interviews, in turn allowing our project to encompass more diverse perspectives.
As part of our effort to educate others—especially younger children—about biology, members of our iGEM team are hosting an interactive quiz-format game with the elementary school. The first section of the quiz includes the explanation, the symptoms, and the reduction methods of breast cancer. The second half of the quiz encompasses the technological advancements in synthetic biology and the application of synthetic biology to solve major problems. By the end of the presentation, the iGEM team hopes that the elementary schoolers would share their new knowledge with their parents and employ the concepts they learned to facilitate future learning on breast cancer and synthetic biology. Synthetic Biology is usually taught in a high school setting and we hope that our educational outreach events can help younger children develop a passion for Synthetic Biology and also make it more accessible to our population. Additionally, through this event, we hope that we can encourage the elementary school children to bring home questions and conversations about breast cancer to their parents, which would further educate a wider range of people.
As an integral part of our community outreach efforts, ASIJ_Tokyo has placed emphasis on making contact with a wide demographic range of individuals. We have conducted interviews in English and Japanese with experts in the fields of biological sciences and breast cancer awareness. In addition, we have also conducted interviews with former breast cancer patients to learn about the stigma of breast cancer in Japan, and have used our Breast Cancer Awareness Month and educational videos to help express the sentiments and frustrations encountered by our interviewees. Many of our interviewees were unable to share their thoughts on breast cancer in fear of being judged by their coworkers, and by actively trying to make breast cancer a more accessible topic, we hope that the community can be more acceptive and supportive. Our international survey reached respondents ranging from their teens to middle age, and as an extension of the survey, we have interviewed consenting respondents of many ages and professions as well. Another focus has been interacting with the Japanese public, which we have done through further interviews and the distribution of Japanese educational pamphlets to improve their understanding of breast cancer.
ASIJ_Tokyo has emphasized making contact with a wide demographic range of individuals as an integral part of our community outreach efforts. We have conducted interviews in English and Japanese with experts in biological sciences and breast cancer awareness. In addition, we have collaborated with iGEM teams from countries like Korea, Copenhagen, Germany, Thailand, Manchester, Sweden, and Costarica. Our international survey reached respondents ranging from their teens to middle age. As an extension of the survey, we have also interviewed consenting respondents of many ages and professions. Another focus has been interacting with the Japanese public, which we have done through further interviews and the distribution of Japanese educational pamphlets to improve their understanding of breast cancer. Our team also varies in ethnicity of Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Pakistani, Italian, Indian, and German. In addition, many of our members are dual citizenship holders. The ratio of female to male members is 15:8.
We also have put an increasing emphasis on spreading iGEM to our Japanese community this year. Through guiding a group of Japanese high school students interested in synthetic biology to create their own iGEM teams, we were able to interact with those we wouldn’t have been able to otherwise, living in an international environment. Although the language barrier discouraged many from initially participating, we hoped to help them overcome this fear by working with them and being a resource they could rely on through this process.
Throughout our Breast Cancer Awareness Month Campaign with the ASIJ Clubs—Pre-Medical Society, Fight On!, and Shine On Kids!, iGEM worked to build inclusivity by engaging diverse members of the ASIJ community. Through translation of our pamphlets into multiple languages, including Japanese, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Filipino, we hoped to build awareness within overlooked populations such as our cleaners and cafeteria workers. Additionally, by reaching out to often overlooked populations within our school community, we not only raised awareness within these groups but built engagement with cleaning and cooking staff, allowing us to engage with them in future projects.
