The Japan Sport Council and the Japan Rugby Football Union (JRFU) have been working together to promote gender equality and inclusive sports while teaching and promoting rugby in Asia over the past seven years. This year, we are unable to conduct on-site visits due to COVID-19. Instead, as the first Sport for Tomorrow (SFT) project, we held an event with Noshiro City, Akita Prefecture, a host town for Jordan, as part of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games host town programme.

Jordan is dubbed ‘a host country for refugees in the Middle East’ as it has accepted many refugees from neighbouring countries and regions such as Syria and Palestine. The event included a seminar by a Japanese lecturer who has been active in Jordan, featuring the daily life of the Jordanian people and the school education provided to children in refugee camps. Noshiro citizens showed a keen interest in the lecture. The latter half of the event was a programme for first-hand experience of tag rugby, which is played at refugee camps. The programme in Noshiro was distributed online with explanations to people associated with rugby in Jordan. After the hands-on programme, Japanese and Jordanian rugby staff and players exchanged opinions on how to practice rugby amid the coronavirus pandemic and resume rugby promotional activities; they promised to work together.

Jordan and Noshiro City will continue their exchanges through sports, culture and education programmes to boost the Olympic and Paralympic movement toward the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Noshiro City Host Town Business Committee
https://www.city.noshiro.lg.jp/sangyo/noshirohosttown/17203

JRFU Asian Scrum Project
"https://jrfu-asianscrum.jp/2020/12/03/projects/sport-for-tomorrow/2069