Nagase Osamu

My involvement with disability issues started at the college. I was a member of a voluntary circle called “Wakatake”, a weekly activity to bring disabled children into the neighborhood park to let them play with children in the park. I remember some of parents were members of Inclusion Japan.
I started to work for Inclusion Japan, on an ad hoc basis, in its international activities with the World Congress in the Hague in 1998. In 2003, I was asked by Inclusion Japan to chair its international activities committee as a volunteer and I agreed. Then there was another surprise and now I am on the council of Inclusion International.
I try to promote Inclusion International within Asia and the Pacific region. We are the only region that has not organized a regional structure and it is our challenge to put a regional structure in place.
I work for the University of Tokyo as an associate professor for disability studies, which identifies social and cultural barriers and affirms life of disabled people. I am also an executive director of Japan Society for Disability Studies as well as a director of the Japan Overseas Cooperation Association, which is an alumni association for the returned volunteers of Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV/JICA). I served as a Japanese language lecturer at the Jomo Kenyatta College of Agriculture & Technology in Kenya from 1983 to 1986.