The Yamagata International Film Festival was held on Thursday September 26th in the Aloha Center Ballroom. The festival presented short videos of students saying thank you to the Gene and Allison Yamagata, the founders of the Yamagata Foundation, for funding their internships.Cory Roberts, the CFO and COO of the Yamagata Enterprises Family Office, said, “The purpose of the foundation is to provide financial support for the students to be able to return to their home countries and other countries to perform internships. We want them to be able to obtain jobs and return to become both civic leaders as well as business leaders in their homelands.”Suthi “Saydi” Siriphan, a senior from Thailand studying international cultural studies, is the marketing and social media specialist for the BYUH Career services and was in charge of the event. He wanted to show appreciation to the Yamagata's in a creative way. “The program has helped 1,500 BYUH students over the past ten years. So we asked the most recently funded students to make a short video containing highlights of their internship and a message of gratitude. Then we put them all together to make a contest out of it,” Saydi said.Students who attended were able to vote for their favorite video by liking it on the Career Services’ Facebook page. The panel of judges included staff of the Yamagata Foundation, Career Services, and LDS Philanthropies from Utah.Nowah Afangbedji, a senior in biology from Tobo, Africa, did his internship in Ghana and won the first place prize: an iPad 4 and gift card. “I’m very grateful for this,” Nowah said. “I’m out of words. I’m so thankful for all the services we have here that made this possible for me.”Merwin Grant, Gene Yamagata’s attorney for twenty-five years and staff of the Yamagata Enterprise Family Office, said that they want students to be proud of coming to BYUH. “We want leaders that can lead the Church and help the young kids grow up and become successful students. We want them to say with pride, ‘I went to BYU-Hawaii’!”When speaking of the foundation, Brother Yamagata said, “Right now the program is exclusively for BYU-Hawaii students. Here is where it started, has grown and where it’s probably going to stay permanently.” Sister Yamagata said, “We love it here because of the students. They’re dedication and hard work are making this program a success. It’s really been inspiring to us and a big blessing.”Brother Yamagata is originally from Idaho and served his mission in Japan. In 1983, he founded Forever Living Products Japan Inc, a multimillionaire personal-care products business that exports goods from the U.S. to Japan. Sister Yamagata is originally from Denver, Colorado. They now live in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Writer: Trenton McCullough ~ Multimedia Journalist
