She was head of the Kobe Woman's Welfare Association, and gained international attention in the 1920s for her suicide prevention campaign of signage and personal intervention.

The signs advised suicidal visitors to stop, to wait, and to visit Jo's home or office, if they were experiencing despair.

Jo believed that many suicidal people in the city experienced stress, poor health, poverty, and social isolation, and that these underlying issues might be resolved or relieved without loss of life.

"[3] She helped women arrange education, employment, housing, travel, and childcare, but also offered spiritual guidance and counseling.

[8][9] "Her efforts are untiring, her sympathies wide, her methods effectual, as she carries on her work of saving women from suicide", declared an Australian newspaper in 1936.