Yuri Hirayama is the Chief Sustainability Officer, School Director, and Principal Educator at the Yuri Education Center. She has been honoured as the “Top Leading Influential Woman in Education 2024” by CToday Awards. She is bringing innovation to education with a new perspective in sustainability and active learning. Her mission is to inspire future leaders seasoned with critical thinking, empathy, and practical solutions to help tackle global challenges. The Yuri Education Center is an independent institution, offering an interactive learning environment where students examine science, sustainability, and English as they research real-world problems and create effective solutions.

Selected for Bringing Sustainability into Education

Knowing the limited attention towards sustainability in her homeland Japan, Yuri focused on integrating the 17 SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) into learning. Students are involved in experiential learning and academic discourses, allowing them to deeply engage with these international goals: how to problematize challenges, then set realistic goals and to develop workable solutions. Yuri encourages the students to ask not just “what” but “why,” allowing for meaningful conversation and an even deeper understanding of shared responsibility on a global scale.

Learning from Experts and Real-World Experience

To deepen their understanding and foster more engaging discussions, the Center regularly invites experts such as experienced sustainability practitioners, esteemed professors, as well as entrepreneurs and corporate executives. The students gain insight and knowledge about the real practical applications and the latest industry-wide developments here. Site visits, fieldwork, and workshops involve students closely and directly with societal challenges along with the local communities. Thus, the experiential approach nurtures leadership quality, empathy, and well-rounded perspectives to address highly challenging social issues.

“Waste to Wow!”: Teaching Sustainable Practices 

Among its highlighted programs is a “Waste to Wow” program aimed at achieving SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), which emphasizes consumption patterns and production in an entirely sustainable way. Through the program, students can present various ideas on sustainable living practices, including material sustainability, digital transformation, waste reduction, and circular economy principles, and engage in discussions with peers and sustainability practitioners. It provides a platform for global youth to present their ideas, receive expert feedback, and refine their innovative solutions. Creating opportunities for youth, along with experts such as professors, sustainability practitioners, and business executives, to collaborate and turn ideas into action is essential both for their development and for the well-being of the Earth. Yuri also implements the ‘Waste to Wow’ program online, involving students of various ages from different countries.

Early Education and Global Learning for Sustainability

Yuri started with an early commitment to sustainability education. Through her program “Yuria’s Happy English Program,” she acquaints children aged four months to three years and their parents with English learning and sustainability themes. Through stories about animals, sea life, and nature, Yuri fosters a love for the environment from a very young age. For older students, aged 4 to 18 years old, the Center has an integrative curriculum that combines math, science, and social studies. Students aged 8 and above also follow a curriculum emphasizing sustainability. These students discuss, present, and work through workshops to enhance their knowledge on global challenges and stimulate creative thinking.

Through Zoom sessions with international experts, students gain a deeper understanding of the SDGs and how they can be applied in practice. Yuri guides them through the Centre’s motto—’We courageously discuss, actively lead, and collectively act’—instilling in her students critical thinking skills, cross-cultural collaboration, and a sense of social responsibility.

In this way, Yuri Hirayama empowers the next generation of socially and environmentally conscious individuals, preparing them to embrace the challenges of a globalized world and make a positive impact. The Yuri Education Center continues to be a hub of transformative education, where students evolve into passionate agents of change, working toward a brighter, more sustainable future for all.