ABOUT

男女共同参画社会基本法制定時、群馬県が主催した「女性のための県政参画講座」を受講後、受講生と共にNPO法人を立ち上げ、女性のエンパワーメント、キャリアアップの講座等を企画・運営。理事長を務める。その後、ウイルを含めた男女共同参画を目指す県内24女性団体の集まり、女連協で活動、現在会長を務める。県内の男女共同参画推進のためのイベントや政策提言等を行っている。

Masako Kurita is a leader of nonprofit organizations. She serves on the board of Gunma Prefectural Women’s Liaison Group and Ayumi-no-kai, an organization that supports female foreign residents of Gunma. She is also a member of the Japanese Association of International Women’s Rights. Masako is currently concentrating her time and efforts on Women’s Will Gunma, which she founded to promote active civic engagement of women and gender equality. She advocates for women’s leadership through facilitating lectures, workshops, and courses that encourage women to be active participants in society. After returning to Japan from the JWLI program in Boston, Masako made several speeches about contributions made by American nonprofit organizations to women’s empowerment in the U.S. She spoke about the importance of work-life balance and the value of investing in the community. She has been conducting research on services and fundraising activities of their American counterparts for their Japanese counterparts. Currently, she is promoting new regulations on tax benefits from charitable donations. Understanding the lack of fundraising activities in the Japanese social sector, she is also promoting the concept and techniques of fundraising and encouraging nonprofit professionals to be a fundraiser. As recognition of her work on women’s empowerment, Masako received the Shining Women (Kagayaku Josei) Award from the Gunma prefecture in November 2015.