We Are Tomodachi Summer 2017

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30With a history of over 320 years, “okigusuri” is a traditional Japanese “use first, pay later” sales method born in Toyama Prefecture, in which medicine is placed in a box at the home or workplace, and money is collected later for whatever medicine was used. AfriMedico is a non-profit organization that introduced this okigusuri system to Africa in order to deliver medicine to regions of Tanzania that lack sufficient medical care. This organization was founded by a Japanese pharmacist, Eri Machii.During her involvement in overseas volunteer activities when she was a college student, Machii decided to make more substantial contributions to the medical problems of developing countries. To help provide medical support to Africa, she left her job and went to Niger as a member of the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers. At a clinic in Niger, she learned that medicine was not reaching the patients who needed it. Machii explains that “In Africa, travel and delivery expenses are high, making it difficult for people living in the deeper reaches of Africa to go to hospitals, and making the delivery of medicine to distant villages nearly impossible. As a result, these people could not be treated in the early stages and were left until their conditions worsened. This situation led me to thinking what could be done to deliver medicine to the people who needed them.”Despite being able to impart medical knowledge to the people of Niger, reasons such as the economic situation of local communities made it impossible to improve their medical situation. Feeling inadequate to cope with the situation, Machii attended a graduate school of management upon her return to Japan to learn what sort of sustainable system could be run mainly by the local people. There she came up with an okigusuri Okigusuri: A Japanese Approach for Better Access to Medicine in AfricaEri MachiiRepresentative Director of AfriMedico and pharmacist. After leaving a pharmaceutical company, she worked for two years from 2008 to 2010 as a volunteer to combat communicable diseases with the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers in Niger, Africa. She attended Globis University’s Graduate School of Management where she came up with the structure of the okigusuri business model. In 2014, she founded the non-profit organization AfriMedico. In 2017, she was selected as one of “Fifty-Five Japanese Women Taking On Global Challenges” by Forbes Japan.Series: Japanese Individuals Contributing Worldwide