As expected future leaders of ASEAN countries, ASJA students will participate in a 4-day 3-night English discussion session with. The workshop will be held in the National Olympic Memorial Youth Center. Together with prospective local Japanese university students (undergraduate and postgraduate) who will play a key role as future global human resources, students will exchange opinions on future issues and cooperation between Japan and ASEAN countries.

As they will be communicating in English all day in a camp style, they can experience exchange student life while being in Japan.

Since the first workshop in 2014, there have been 6 workshops in total up to 2019. A total of 162 Japanese students have attended from universities such as Sophia University, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Chiba University, Tohoku University, Tsukuba University, Gunma University, Keio University, Waseda University, Yokohama National University, Tsuda University, Saitama University, Kyoto University, Osaka University, University of Tokyo, Tokyo University of The Arts, Meiji University, Hosei University, and Shinshu University.

Many of these Japanese students have even attended multiple times and the event has received much praise from them.

During the workshop, students will participate in a lively discussion about the prospective problems and ideal direction of international cooperation between Japan and ASEAN countries. They will also investigate specific challenges as a group and come up with a ‘win-win’ solution for both Japan and ASEAN. In the 2019 workshop, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were utilized as a tool to deepen discussion. The last day saw groups using PowerPoint to create slides, which they then presented to their peers.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, a special website has been set up to commemorate the anniversary of the first reunion of past workshop attendees.特設サイトを立ち上げました。

The website includes images of past ASJA workshops, messages from the attendees, as well as messages from the lecturers and stakeholders who have contributed to the workshop.

The ASJA workshop reunion was held online on Saturday, February 19 2022. On the day itself, attendees reminisced about their workshop experiences, discussed, and played games about familiar topics just like they did during the workshop.