What's Shiawaseru Project
The project was launched based on our wish for increasing a sense of happiness for Japanese people. Particularly in here, we use the Japanese word "Shiawase" as happiness or well-being.

Originally, Japanese could find a sense of happiness in communications and connections with one another. Japanese people could adapt and respond to any circumstances. We describe it as "Shiawaseru". Shiawaseru means neither sacrifice nor follow others. It is more self-directed.

Our activity mission is to familiarize the wisdom of Shiawaseru to everyday life and pass the vibrant society down the next generation.

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It all started with a graph that shows progress of postwar GDP and subjective life satisfaction in Japan. It was a shock to see that our life satisfaction have continued to be flat while the GDP have been growing. In other words, feeling of happiness remained unchanged even postwar in Japan. That's surprise!

The Japanese word Shiawase came from a book "Shiawaseru Power" written by Sokyu Genyu (1956-). The word originated in Nara period (710-794). Shiawase is derived from Shiawaseru that means, putting what I do and what others do together. In short, Japanese people used to say Shiawase to express having good connections with others. That rang a bell and made us move forward to enhance our life satisfaction, pass fulfilling Japanese society down the generations and act, first of all. 

In 2010, we have launched a forum for dialogue, and named it as "Shiawase Meeting" with awe. Motivation of this activity came from our wish for increasing a sense of happiness for Japanese people. Born and raised in Japan, we must have a sense of Shiawase imprinted in our DNA. Then, the project was renamed to "Shiawaseru Project" in September 2012.

Between 2010 and 2011, we have organized numerous dialogue events about happiness, and collected more than 300 questionnaire survey. What we could find there was delicate sensitivity that Japanese people generally feel it as normal, Shiawaseru possibility and our indigenous wisdom that is still being succeeded.

A symbol of Shiawaseru Project is Japanese tree. The image represents deep rooted Japanese tree with thick trunk and large leaves thrives and bears a lot of fruits nourished by smile and energy of people.

Our activity is in progress. Information of workshop and event is readily available.
We are looking forward to putting things together with you.