Coca-Cola Bottlers Japan collaborates with Hamamatsu Kaiseikan High School in a joint project aimed at contributing to the achievement of SDGs
Installed “TABLE FOR TWO Vending Machine” with an original wrapping on campus

Coca-Cola Bottlers Japan Inc. (headquarters in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director & President Calin Dragan; hereafter “CCBJI”) installed a custom-designed “TABLE FOR TWO vending machine” (hereafter “TFT VM”) on the campus of Hamamatsu Kaiseikan High School (Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture) on October 5, 2021 as a joint project aimed at contributing to the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs).

TABLE FOR TWO (hereafter “TFT”) is a social contribution program first established in Japan that is spreading worldwide with a shared objective to eliminate hunger in developing countries and health issues like obesity and other lifestyle-related diseases in developed countries at the same time. A part of the proceeds earned from the TFT VM installed through this joint project will be donated to specified nonprofit organization, TABLE FOR TWO International, to be used as the fund for providing school meals to children in areas of need around the world.

CCBJI’s involvement in this project began when the students from Hamamatsu Kaiseikan High School contacted the company this spring to consult about how beverages can help support their school project. Hamamatsu Kaiseikan High School is an academic institution offering SDGs-themed problem-solving projects to its students as part of this school’s inquisitive learning program. This institution is already known for its proven track record of supporting its students taking lead in industry-academia joint projects designed to provide them valuable learning experiences and opportunities to exchange views and broaden their perspectives on current social issues and global initiatives such as, the SDGs. This joint project between CCBJI and Hamamatsu Kaiseikan High School is the result of the perfect match between the passionate desire of these students wanting to address the global issue of hunger in their own way and the strong interest of CCBJI to enhance its CSR activities through its vending business.

TFT VM features the custom wrapping designed from various ideas that came up from the students themselves, which include the TFT photos they selected and the original message “Aiming for a future where no one will be left behind” that clearly reflects their strong will to contribute to the achievement of SDGs.

TABLE FOR TWO vending machine installed on campus

CCBJI intends to continue collaborating with Hamamatsu Kaiseikan High School to pursue the shared interest of contributing to the achievement of SDGs by thinking what we can all do together to build a better future for everyone.

■Comment from Hamamatsu Kaiseikan High School Principal Takahashi-san

When our students were working on a project on building a sustainable society based on their common interest to “protect our future”, they held discussions on the pros and cons of installing a vending machine on campus and exchanged opinions on how to operate it if it was going to be installed. TABLE FOR TWO vending machine that we decided to install on our campus embodies the conclusion reached from repeated discussions between our students and the members of Coca-Cola Bottlers Japan, which is a company proactively engaged in the achievement of SDGs. This project can be regarded as an effective problem-solving learning model driven by “voluntary and collaborative efforts to study” that are being advocated by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. I believe that our students were able to gain a great confidence through their valuable experience collaborating with their schoolmates and diverse grown-up members participating in this project to pursue their common interest of bringing about changes that can help improve the society. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all the grown-up members for providing our students this precious opportunity to work on this joint problem-solving project together.

■Comment from a student representing Hamamatsu Kaiseikan High School Global Course

On behalf of the students enrolled in Hamamatsu Kaiseikan High School Global Course, I would like to thank all the stakeholders who helped realize our group proposal. As one of the programs of the Global Course, there is a subject called the “Global Research” (which has been renamed to “Global Issues” from 2021) where the students are expected to do a research on a specific social issue and come up with ideas to help address or resolve that particular issue. This year, our group decided to study about hunger and began searching for ideas on how we could contribute to solving this problem. Through this search process, we came to learn about TFT. And through our consultation and collaboration with the members of Coca-Cola Bottlers Japan, we were able to make our plan of installing a vending machine on campus come true. We intend to continue putting into action what we learn through these valuable hands-on experiences.

■Comment from TABLE FOR TWO International representative Yamamoto-san

As the representative of TABLE FOR TWO International, I feel very honored to be able to take part in this wonderful joint project. One of the main missions of TFT is to “right the global food imbalance”. But this is not something that can be achieved overnight. It requires the commitment to work patiently for a long term to improve the situation steadily. The fact that the students in Hamamatsu Kaiseikan High School who represent the upcoming generation of our future expressed their support of our mission and worked voluntarily to put their shared interest into action through the installation of this TFT VM means a great deal to us all. I hope their undying passion and continuous efforts to address the global food issue will help not only the other students in Hamamatsu Kaiseikan High School but also more people in their community become more familiar with this problem and take ownership to deal with it individually as one of their personal matters. I also look forward to seeing the cause of this successful joint project spread with a positive ripple effect on more schools and communities.

■Comment from CCBJI Vending Hamamatsu Sales Center Manager Monya

CCBJI has been and continues to be involved in various activities aimed at contributing to the building of sustainable society through its business. I feel very pleased to see the plan of installing a custom-designed vending machine that reflects the passion of all the students involved in this project to contribute to the achievement of SDGs come to fruition. I hope the installed vending machine serves as an effective platform to enhance the understanding of more and more people on the importance of building a sustainable society.

【Hamamatsu Kaiseikan Middle School / High School】

Hamamatsu Kaiseikan is an academic institution underpinned with “future-building education” principles that seeks to nurture independent-minded individuals who can contribute to society. It has adopted an “advanced education” system driven by information and communication technology and inquisitive learning approach that promotes moral education-based learning through the pursuit of SDGs and encourages its students to take voluntary actions to study and develop their individual skills necessary to pave their own future path. Hamamatsu Kaiseikan views SDGs to be an important educational theme of today, and aims to enrich the students’ learning experience by making them pick any one of the social issues addressed in SDGs as their study theme and guiding them to deep-dive and take ownership of the selected issue, treating it as though it is one of their personal matters.

【Specified nonprofit organization, TABLE FOR TWO International】

TABLE FOR TWO (TFT) is a nonprofit organization established in Japan in 2007 with an objective to tackle the global challenges of obesity and starvation at the same time under the concept of meal sharing between the privileged in developed nations and underprivileged children living elsewhere in hunger. Among the approximately 7.5 billion people that constitute the world population today, around 800 million are suffering from starvation and malnutrition, while close to 2 billion are struggling with lifestyle-related foodborne diseases including obesity. The mission of TFT is to right the food imbalance spreading in global scale and reduce the health issues in both the developed and developing countries around the world at the same time. https://jp.tablefor2.org/

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