On November 15, 2024, Seibo held a lecture at the Japan campus of Lakeland University in the United States.
The lecture focused on how social activities can coexist with and be implemented through business, as well as the career paths leading to such endeavors. Additionally, university students from Japan, the Netherlands, and Portugal, who are involved in the nonprofit’s activities as interns, shared their perspectives. This created a valuable opportunity to explore the concept of social business as a career from various multinational viewpoints.

The representative of Seibo, Yamada, shared her journey of studying English literature and theology during university. She explained how she chose a career in marketing as a way to leverage the ethics and networks she developed in her academic life. Her approach emphasizes not just selling a product but also conveying the worldview behind it.

Currently, Seibo sells coffee from Malawi, not merely as a product but as a medium to deliver the social value embedded within it to society.

One of the interns, Lenne from the Netherlands, spoke about her studies in international social welfare and her on-site experiences with nonprofit activities in Japan. She highlighted the challenges of addressing relative poverty and areas where Japan’s social welfare systems fall short. She expressed her hope to apply these experiences in her future academic pursuits at her Dutch university.

We hope this lecture served as an opportunity for the students at Lakeland University to learn about new career paths within the nonprofit sector in Japan.