Under the Global Shapers Yokohama Hub (GSC-Y), the Yokoma Women’s Meetup Project members hosted the first Tanimoku gathering at G Innovation Hub on March 23, 2022. 

The idea behind the gathering was to bring together people from different backgrounds and experiences to create a supportive community “where you can breathe, grow and glow.” 
Tanimoku is discussion-based, where an individual shares their current challenges and experiences in a small group and allows the rest to listen with the purpose of translating the individual’s situation and suggesting next steps/actions they could take for that one step forward. 

Before jumping into the conversation in a small group, nine of us kicked off with a creative ice breaker involving doodling with markers, releasing our inner child. To help us split into groups, we took turns sharing our current “help wanted” topics. The most common for all of us were “time and life management”, as most of us were in our 20s/early 30s - the crossroad of career and life decisions. 

In the next segment, we split into two groups and dived into individual tanimoku discussions. These discussions often went deep into personal experiences, sharing beyond the surface of what we do day to day. We felt that there aren’t a lot of opportunities, especially in Japan, to have these discussions where you can breathe and be yourself. So to have 3 to 4 people listen closely and provide you a perspective of where you are was very valuable to all of us. In the end, we all came out with a better understanding and perspective of each other, and individually, with a clearer idea of how to take that next step to approaching our challenges.