Greetings everyone, and welcome to Bamboo Dan.
This is a non-profit venture that is actually in the planning stages right now so your criteria and commentary would be greatly appreciated. The planning of this venture was very meaningful, and I will go into some detail here as opposed to the venture pitch website, where this content is limited to the course participants.
Last month, on my own birthday, a student of mine decided to take his own life. Japan, where I have been working as an English professor for the past decade, has the third highest suicide rate of developed nations, and suicide is the greatest cause of death for men ages 20 to 44 in this country. As opposed to being seen as a mental health problem (which is shunned socially here), it is seen more as a social issue and even at times “a recommended way out” for those who have “no other choices” in their life. After a long mourning period, I decided to scrap my original venture idea and find a way to prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again.
The concept is a website/online community and app that students can register for and get help, be it emotionally or for their studies, 24/7. After further research and development, the project will have a test run at my school and then hopefully spread to other colleges in my city and across Japan. For more details, please go check out the venture website to learn more.
As you can probably imagine, this endeavour was a very difficult and trying task for me in many ways. However, the feeling of strong need for this kind of venture in my current working environment is growing stronger every day, so I hope you all take the time and can leave some constructive criticism (don’t be shy to be as harsh as necessary) to make this project a reality.
It is strongly possible that I not go into detail about the incident that started this venture on this or the venture website, but feel free to contact me directly (onctomek@icloud) if you would like to hear and/or discuss the details.
Sincerely,
Tomek