The Zonta Club of Matsumoto, Japan, held a Rose Day event in 2016 with the theme, “Children Are Our Treasures, Let’s Raise Them Together.” The club became aware of social issues affecting children and women through discussions with the participating mothers. Since then, they have organized eight events over the past seven years on topics such as sexually abused children and women, children’s rights and well-being and the current state of sex education and guidelines that should be addressed, leading to increased awareness of sex education.

The club has hosted five lectures, which 420 participants attended, three online training sessions with 140 participants and 25-30 Zontians attended each event. Cooperating organizations and officials from neighboring districts included the three city and three municipal boards of education, school education departments, elementary and junior high school teachers, those in charge of sex education in the field, nursery school teachers, kindergarten teachers, doctors, midwives and the lieutenant governor of Nagano Prefecture. Each time, the club’s activities were publicized through coverage in local newspapers and other media, as well as announcements and postings on social media.

In the future, the club will continue to work on a policy proposal to raise sex education in Japan from early childhood to compulsory education to the international level, first by having the Nagano Prefectural Assembly of the local government consider their policy proposals as a policy advocacy document, and then collaborate with each Zonta club in District 26 to expand policy advocacy in their respective local communities. Ultimately, they aim to continue thoroughly discussing and addressing them at the national level.