About issuing of JUNIOR SAFE.

#SDGAction43129

Description

Intro

JUNIOR SAFE is an environmental information free magazine for children published by the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group. The latest issue, a special issue on SDGs, was produced to help children learn how their own actions can help achive the SDGs, to teach them that well-known companies are also striving to achieve these goals, and to encourage them to take up these challenges themselves.

Objective of the practice

JUNIOR SAFE is designed to teach children about SDGs and to have them discover that they themselves can take action and meet challenges. 
Accordingly, we believe that the children who have read this magazine will think about, and put into practice, activities relating to all 17 SDGs. 
The goals for 2030 indicated in the SDGs cover topics that must be addressed now and not put off into the distant future, and we think that governments, companies, and individual adults and children need to begin taking steps toward these shared goals. 
This magazine introduces children who have come up with inventions or taken actions that will make the world a better place, offers a variety of contests in which children can enter their own ideas and inventions, and presents views from actual fourth-grade children, the aim being to have readers consider these issues from the perspective of children and regard them as their own concerns. 
Each two-page spread introduces a topic, the relevant SDGs, corporate activities, etc., and puts specific issues in a more visible form. 
We have also made it a point to utilize numerous illustrations and photographs on each page to keep children from becoming bored as they read through the magazine.

Partners

This magazine is planned and prepared by the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and produced under the supervision of its subsidiary the Japan Research Institute.

Implementation of the Project/Activity

・ Copies were distributed at EcoPro, Japan’s largest environmental exhibition, and at events for children hosted by our company
・ Copies were made available at branches of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, SMBC Trust Bank and other Group institutions nationwide.
・ The magazine was posted in PDF format on our company website: (Japanese only)
https://www.smfg.co.jp/responsibility/report/magazine/pdf/jsafe_004.pdf
・ We have also been distributing copies of the magazine to elementary schools, etc., on request.
・ In particular, we hope by posting the magazine online that more people will learn about the magazine and will be encouraged to read through it.

Results/Outputs/Impacts

・ When distributing copies of the magazine at environmental exhibitions, etc., we have received comments from multiple people wanting elementary school teachers to use the magazines for more in-depth lessons, and we have distributed copies to schools that request them.
As a ripple effect, we were able to popularize the magazine among more children through lessons at school. Several schools have expressed interest in having the magazine available in their libraries, and there have been instances in which the magazine has been utilized at libraries and other public institutions.
A questionnaire survey on JUNIOR SAFE has been posted on our company’s website, and we are hoping through such approaches to increase the impact of our magazine by collecting opinions from readers and other stakeholders.
One effect that was not anticipated was that the magazine has proven helpful in giving our company’s employees and their family members a deeper understanding of SDGs.

Enabling factors and constraints

・ The most difficult aspect of producing this magazine was considering how to explain SDGs in ways that children would find easy to understand and deciding what kinds of expressions would be most suitable.
・ While ensuring that the content is comprehensible to children, we have incorporated creative approaches to encourage children to apply their own ideas and inventions in helping to achieve SDGs.

Sustainability and replicability

・ While it is difficult to show the direct impact of this magazine on the environment, the society and the economy, we believe that encouraging the children who are our future to realize that they themselves have a responsibility to understand SDGs and help achieve these shared goals will prove beneficial for society as a whole.
・ Our company offers support by directly providing funds as a financial institution, but we also have a major role to play in helping fulfill SDGs by providing information in this manner.

Conclusions

・ One thing that our company wanted to get children to realize through JUNIOR SAFE is that SDGs are not distant world events in a remote future with no connection to themselves but are instead issues that affect their day-to-day lives as well as being targets shared by people around the world. 
We believe that the ideas and inspiration of the children who will lead the future have the power to stimulate innovation that will help achieve the 2030 targets. 
We are convinced that JUNIOR SAFE provides a supportive base for exercising this power.

Other sources of information

We have posted the magazine at this URL: (Japanese only)
https://www.smfg.co.jp/responsibility/report/magazine/pdf/jsafe_004.pdf

SDGS & Targets