For two days, on December 2nd and 5th, we held "Introduction to Isuzu Business" sessions at Shinagawa Gakuen.

The initiative was part of Shinagawa Ward's "Shinagawa Dream Job" program, which aims to make students interested in jobs, think about their future, and learn how to achieve their dreams by having them listen to corporate professionals and community members from various fields. Isuzu has been involved in the program since 2018, so this was the third time for it to be held.

This year, we conducted the event in online format for the first time, instead of the usual school visit format, to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 infection. We targeted 133 first-year junior high school students. On the first day, we gave them a video overview of Isuzu Motors, and on the second day, we played a video of four Isuzu employees introducing their jobs at the school, ending with a live video Q&A session via Teams. During the Q&A session, the students asked a string of questions on the screen, which gave our employees a strong sense of accomplishment.

We plan to continue these efforts to nurture students' dreams for the future by familiarizing them with companies and the employees who work there, who they usually have few opportunities to interact with.

Following on from last year, we held special classes again for fifth graders in the 2020 school year.
(November 30: Kawasaki City Sakado Elementary School; December 22: Shinagawa Gakuen; March 15: Ebina City Higashi-Kashiwagaya Elementary School)

The aim of these classes is to let the children know how DeuSEL works and that the joint research with Euglena Co., Ltd. is a future-oriented activity. This is the sixth year we have given classes at elementary schools, and each time they have been received well.

In each class, representatives from Isuzu and Euglena Co., Ltd. explained about DeuSEL, after which the students had a chance to try out a DeuSEL bus and observe euglena organisms. During the Q&A sessions, students asked many questions that were direct and to the point, as only a child can, and instructors were also bombarded with questions during the breaks and after the classes.

We did consider cancelling classes in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, we believe that linking knowledge gained in the classroom to actual experience deepens children's understanding, and so we did hold classes as in previous years, while taking infection prevention measures (constant ventilation on the bus and hand disinfection when getting on and off the bus, in addition to usual measures).

We hope we have given the children some pleasant memories of 2020, when so many other school events have been cancelled.