Sumitomo Group Public Affairs Committee recently supported The 80th Speech Contest of The Schools for the Blind (hosted by Mainichi Newspaper Co., Ltd. Tenji Mainichi) held on Oct. 14th, 2011 at the Osaka School for the Blind.

This year, nine blind student representatives emerged from districts from all over Japan, after winning their elimination contests. Every time we hear these students speak to us about the experiences in their own words of facing their difficulties, conquering the fight with their own weakness and the important things they learned from dealing with their family or friends, it sometimes sounded as though they were talking to us individually and so passionately, one can‘t help from getting emotional.

The impressive winner of this year‘s contest was Asa Naka, the delegate from the Kinki region, with her speech, titled “My most precious thing in the world”. She lost her sight when she was three years old, and she had been worried but now appreciates her life and tries to be positive by thinking about her friend who also fought against the same disease but passed away. Her eagerness with not hiding her disability and saying, "I live my life positively and strongly" and her passion and clear voice mixed well and touched the judges and all of the audience.

Sumitomo Group Public Affairs Committee is formed jointly by the 36 companies; that are all part of the original Sumitomo company with over 400 years of history. They work together for various activities to increase community trust with Sumitomo and hope to make positive relationships in society through these initiatives.

With our group message, "Passing important values from people to people", supporting “The Speech Contest of the Schools for the Blind” is just one of our activities that is very meaningful for us. “What is important” spread as words to you and hope they become an inspiration to people to “live” for tomorrow.