She鈥檚 off to save the world 鈥� or at least make it a little better.聽
Mari Otomo, daughter of Squamish鈥檚 Junko and Nobuyuki Otomo, owners of Sushi Goemon, will be leaving in May for a three-month practicum at United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) in Hiroshima, Japan.
The Hiroshima office focuses specifically on training UN diplomats and civil servants in post-conflict countries in order to help them build a better country, post-war, Otomo, 33, explained.
鈥淭hey have a fellowship program with the government of Afghanistan and they also just started a fellowship with South Sudan,鈥� she said.聽
鈥淭hey come to Hiroshima and get trained on things like anticorruption, good governance all these things that would help them鈥� at home as they rebuild their government after war.鈥澛�
Otomo said her role will be to help facilitate and develop content for the workshops the participants will attend.聽
The practicum is part of her one-year masters in social work program at the University of Calgary, where she is specializing in international and community development, she said.
Ultimately, she would like to work on children鈥檚 rights issues.聽
鈥淢y goal would be to see the day in which children鈥檚 rights all over the world are being recognized and upheld, so however I can contribute to that goal in some way would be ideal for me.鈥澛�
Her desire to work on a global scale partially came out of a summer after high school she spent in Ghana, doing development work while earning her political science degree from Simon Fraser University.
鈥淭hat sort of solidified my passion for international development work,鈥� she said.
She later attended the University of British Columbia where she earned bachelor in social work with a focus on child welfare.聽
鈥淲ith my masters, what I wanted to focus on is combining my passion for international development with my specialization in child welfare,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 thought it might be a good opportunity for me to understand what the process of building a country looks like post war because there are lots of implications for children as well. If you have good government, you will be able to make proper policies that will impact programs and laws surrounding children鈥檚 welfare.鈥�
Stepping up to help is not new to Otomo鈥檚 family.聽
When relatives on her father鈥檚 side were affected by the March 2011 tsunami in Japan, her family went to the area to volunteer at an animal rescue organization set up after the tsunami hit.
Her sister, Aki,聽is now studying to become a veterinarian.聽
鈥淭hese are the ways in which my parents, specifically my mother, has fostered the importance of giving back to the community and fostered curiosity in us,鈥� Otomo said.聽
Otomo鈥檚 mother, Junko, was an interpreter for the Cuban embassy in Japan for many years and that influenced how her two daughters saw the world.聽
Her father, Nobuyuki, travelled the world working on a cargo ship.
鈥淲e grew up in a very international home,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e had foreigners in our house often.鈥澛�
