he IHI Soma office has participated in the Soma-Nomaoi festival since 2005. This traditional horseback riding festival of the Soma region is a Shinto ritual cherished by the local community that enlivens the entire town during the days it is held. After a three-year hiatus, the festival was held as usual in 2022.

The office's manager^※ participated as a guardian knight for the portable shrine, and a total of over 70 employees, including new employees, new management, and team leaders, as well as newly-appointed core staff members, recreation leaders, and IHI Jet Service and IHI Casting personnel participated in various roles such as carrying the portable shrine, its wooden sakakibako beams, and flags. Clad in traditional eboshi hats and white robes, the shrine bearers marched the heavy shrine and sakakibako through the streets of Soma and Minami-Soma (Kashima and Haramachi Wards) while protected by a procession of knights. The dignified appearance of the young participants received praise from Nakamura Shrine and its parishioners.

The IHI Sakanomachi Plant will continue to participate in this festival as part of its ongoing contribution to the local community.

These guardian knights protected Nakamura Shrine's portable shrine from the front and back.

IHI Agri-Tech's Asahi Factory is located in the village of Asahi, Nagano Prefecture, at the foot of the 2,447-meter-high Mount Hachimori, one of Japan's 300 Famous Mountains. When visiting Asahi Village Hall, we learned about the recruitment of volunteers for the Mount Hachimori Mountain Marathon. Four employees volunteered to participate in the event to bring us closer and make a contribution to the local community.

On August 7th, the fourth Mount Hachimori Mountain Marathon took place, organized by the Asahi Tourism Association. Approximately 200 runners participated in the challenging race, which involved running from the foot to the summit of the mountain. Through this event, Asahi aims to promote the village to, and increase interaction with, people from inside and outside the prefecture. They also aim to expand the participation of villagers and establish the marathon as a staple event that involves the entire village and participants. IHI Agri-Tech supported these goals by cheering for each runner and handing out water. Seeing the exhausted faces of the runners turn into smiles and hearing them express their gratitude provided us with great inspiration and encouragement.

IHI Agri-Tech will continue its volunteer activities to contribute to Asahi.

The Aioi Peiron is a tradition that was passed down to Aioi by Nagasaki-born employees of the Harima Shipyard in 1922. It celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2022. On May 29th, the Aioi Peiron Festival, which had been suspended since 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was held for the first time in three years, with 39 teams participating from both inside and outside the prefecture.

Six teams from the IHI Aioi Plant participated, and the lively sound of gongs and drums reverberated throughout Aioi Bay. In commemoration of this event, we also provided championship flags and other items celebrating the 100th Anniversary Commemorative Peiron Exhibition.

The IHI Aioi Plant will continue to participate in the Aioi Peiron Festival, cherishing the local traditional culture and contributing to the local community's vitality.

On October 1st, the 16th Tokara Islands Marathon was held after a three-year hiatus, with 72 runners participating from seven of Toshima, Kagoshima's islands.

Stemming from our investigations into ocean current power using the Kuroshio ocean current, IHI supported the marathon, organized by Toshima Village. IHI employees participated as runners and achieved second place in the women's division. Toshima is a village consisting of seven islands (Kuchinoshima, Nakanoshima, Tairajima, Suwanosejima, Akusekijima, Kodarakajima, and Takarajima) spanning approximately 160 km north to south between the islands of Yakushima and Amami Oshima, with a population of 651 people (54 to 142 people per island, as of June 2022).

This marathon is a unique event where participants run to catch a ferry, travel to the next island, then continue running to the next ferry. Although the distance is shorter than a regular marathon at approximately 25.1 km, it is a varied and challenging course with steep slopes and featuring volcanic islands, hot spring islands, and coral islands. At each island, participants can enjoy the tropical scenery of southern Japan while receiving cheers from the local residents.

The IHI Group will continue to collaborate with the local community through social contribution activities.

IHI operates the Soma IHI Green Energy Center (SIGC) in cooperation with Soma City, Fukushima.

At SIGC, we hold recycling-themed community-building events with the goal of contributing to local production and consumption of renewable energy and the development and revitalization of the region. In fiscal year 2022, we invited local elementary school students to learn about IHI's business and efforts toward decarbonization in connection with SDGs. They had the opportunity to see the facilities in operation utilizing renewable energy and operate radio-controlled toys powered by green hydrogen, allowing them to experience the IHI Group's commitment to SDGs.

The IHI Group will continue to provide learning opportunities for the children who will shape a sustainable future society.

The IHI Group hopes to make the universe a stage for learning for children to recognize themselves as earthlings and cultivate a passion for life.
We work with elementary, junior, and senior high schools near Mizuho Aero-Engine Works to create art to deliver to the stars, such as cosmological couplets and five-verse poems, through general, language, science, and ethics education. The children’s art is launched with an aerospace instrument, such as a private craft, rocket, spaceship, or international space station, in order to deliver them to the stars twinkling in the sky. Roughly 70,000 children have participated in the program over the last 22 years.

In fiscal 2022, online art was created by approximately 6,000 children from 31 local schools in 7 countries and regions. The IHI Group continues to offer and promote opportunities for children to write cosmological couplets to encourage one another beyond countries and regions.
Additionally, as a way to try and create dialogue going beyond generations, we held activities where adults (including IHI top management) participated in making cosmological couplets, DX promotion (a video letter crossing over time zones), making memories of closing schools, and so on. We plan to launch these art pieces in summer 2023.
The IHI Group will continue to grow alongside elementary, junior high, and high school students through learning experiences to fulfill the dreams of children.

IHI Corporation & Mizuho Town ("Promoting Space Education")

IHI Corporation & Mitsumura Tosho Publishing Co., Ltd. ("Let's Look Up at the Sky")

The IHI Yokohama Office conducts annual cleanup activities on the roads around the office. On May 25th, as part of the environmental improvement activities in the Yokohama area for the first half of the fiscal year 2022, we conducted a litter picking activity on the sidewalks around the office. On June 21st, approximately 50 participants took part in the activity as part of Environment Month. Being a busy industrial road with heavy traffic, there were many cigarette butts and plastic bags thrown into the greenery that separates the road from the sidewalk, and despite regular cleanups, the garbage bags quickly filled up.

In addition, on October 27th, in collaboration with neighboring companies and the local governments, about 150 people participated in a cleanup activity along the course of the Yokohama Marathon. Since the Yokohama Marathon has many supporters cheering from the sidewalks, we carried out environmental maintenance to ensure clean sidewalks for a pleasant cheering experience on the day of the marathon.

The IHI Yokohama Office will continue to implement activities to beautify the environment around the office.

Nico Precision Equipment has been conducting its ""Nico NICO Nadeshiko activities since the fiscal year 2016 with the aim of promoting the active participation of women. Since the fiscal year 2019, we have been engaged in social contribution activities, and this fiscal year marks the fourth year of our activities. The activities involve four teams that collect products whose packaging bears a bell symbol (which can be traded for educational supplies), used cloth, plastic bottles, and old clothes. The collected used cloth is donated to the Minamiuonuma Social Welfare Association, the plastic bottles support polio vaccination for children worldwide, and the old clothes are cut and reused as cleaning rags at the worksite.

With the cooperation and advice of not only employees but also IHI Group companies and business partners, we anticipate achieving our goals for this fiscal year. We will continue our activities to achieve the annual collection target. Nico Precision Equipment will continue its activities of reusing locally used items to contribute to society.