March 2013 SIETAR Kansai & JALT Osaka sponsored talk: What 3/11 Means for the Future of Volunteering

Presenter:          Ms. Yuko Nishiyama

Date:                Saturday, March 30, 2013 (4:00pm~6:00pm)

Place:                Takatsuki Shiritsu Sogo Shimin Koryu Center, 3th floor (Room 1)

                       (1 minute walk from JR Takatsuki Station) Tel.0726-85-3721

http://www.city.takatsuki.osaka.jp/db/kurasu/images/koryu.gif

Fee:                   500 yen for members and students, 1,000 yen for non-members

Language:           English (partially Japanese)

Co-sponsors:      SIETAR Kansai and JALT Osaka

 

Description of presentation:

Much like in the aftermath of the Hanshin Earthquake, official response was inadequate and slow in coming. And much like in 1995, local businesses, community groups and NPOs are filling the breach. One of these is Minna no Te, a community action group of Tohoku evacuees living in Kyoto. Its founder, Yuko Nishiyama will detail her personal story, her efforts to partner with local aid groups, and explain how you can help those affected by the 3/11 disaster.

Many of us have looked on in sympathy with those undergoing such tremendous misfortune, but are at a loss for how we can help without the expense and time commitment of a trip to Tohoku. Yuko will expand our knowledge of the 3/11 crisis’s local dimension, and offer opportunities for us to “think globally and act locally.”

Finally, she’ll explain how the community is spreading the word of the ongoing challenges besetting the affected. Among those projects is a website featuring blogs by victims and a speaking tour at the University of Hawaii-Manoa during the week of March 11, 2013, commemorating the two-year anniversary of the earthquake.

The television news may have moved on to other topics, but the continuing events and consequences of 3/11 continue to inspire a collective response from all of us. Formerly loosely-associated groups around the globe are using the internet and social media to raise awareness and answer the challenges. Learn how you can become involved!

Profile of presenter:

A native of Fukushima city, Yuko Nishiyama earned a BA in linguistics from
Iowa State University, where she lived for five years. Following an
eighteen-month French immersion in Canada, she returned to Fukushima and
worked as an English teacher and interpreter. She left her career with the
birth of her daughter Mariko and was living with her in Fukushima when the
3/11 disasters struck. She evacuated with her two-year-old later that
month, eventually settling in Kyoto in June. Surrounded by other evacuees,
she founded *Minna no Te*, a community organization dedicated to providing
information and assistance to those displaced. Current initiatives include
the Dream Summer Project, which reunites evacuees with their friends and
family both in Kyoto and Fukushima. This January, the organization started
a cafe to provide local evacuees a network and a source of employment.

SIETAR Japan, Kansai Chapter,Special Program (Supported by Hyogo Overseas Research Network and School of Economics, University of Hyogo), “Relationships among China, Japan and Korea – A Global Perspective”

Presenter:   Professor Helena Meyer-Knapp (Evergreen State College, US.)

Date:       Sunday, December 2, 2012  (2:00pm~4:00pm)

Place:      Nishinomiya Daigaku Koryu Center (ACTA East Tower 6F,

            Seminar Rm2), 2 minutes walk from Hankyu Nishinomiya Kitaguchi Station.

            http://www.nishi.or.jp/~daigaku/info/index.html, Tel. (0798) 69-3155

Fee:        Free

Language:   English

 

Description of the presentation:

China, Japan and Korea have deep and ancient historical relationships. Bonds have been close in some periods and very distant at other times. For much of the time, connections and conflicts in NE Asia were beyond the perspective of most other nations. Europeans were in such sparse contact in medieval times that the view from far away was largely shaped by the opinions of isolated travelers, often from the Netherlands.

The situation today is very different. Japanese trade with China, China’s new economic globalization, relations between North Korea and the other NE Asian nations, conflicts over island territories from South East Asia to Russia, the hosting of the Olympic games, the great earthquake and tsunami of 2011, even Korean television dramas each attract the attention of ordinary citizens and political leaders from all over the world.

 

This presentation will explore a number of the key issues mentioned above, describing how recent public events, new trade systems and commercial products and popular culture have had an impact elsewhere in the world. The presentation will also explore in a limited way, a few key components of more recent history in relations among the three countries, to illuminate limitations in the knowledge base from which this global perspective views NE Asia.

 

Profile of the Presenter

Helena Meyer-Knapp has been a professor at The Evergreen State College, in the USA for many years, teaching about peace, politics and ethics, international relations and Asian and women’s studies. In 2001 and 2006 she was a research scholar and exchange professor at Hyogo Kenritsu daigaku

Her research centers on peacemaking and strategic studies. After a yearlong fellowship at Harvard’s Bunting Institute she authored the book Dangerous Peace-making (2003), which examines peace making in seven of the world’s war zones, and offers tools for resolving complex conflicts from local to international communities. She has been  a Fulbright Senior Scholar in 2009, spending a semester teaching at the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, South Korea. 

 

 

 

 

 

SIETAR Japan, Kansai Chapter, November Meeting, 2012 “Historical and Cultural Stories of Peace: An Arts-based Approach to Conflict Transformation and Reconciliation”

Presenter:  Dr. Kyoko Okumoto(Osaka Jogakuin University)

Date: Saturday, November 3  (2:00pm~4:00pm)

Place:      Takatsuki Shiritsu Sogo Shimin Koryu Center

           (1 minute walk from JR Takatsuki Station),  Tel. 0726-85-3721

           http://www.city.takatsuki.osaka.jp.

Fee:          500yen for members and students, 1.000yen for non-members

Language:     English (English & Japanese for Q&A)

 

Description of the Presentation:

 Peace and conflict are constantly in the news today, but peace and conflict have also become important fields of academic study where both theory and analysis have been developed. While research and empirical work are important, it is essential to include practical activities in order to foster realistic change. Many NGOs around the world are working on many levels to promote peace and conflict resolution in different communities.

Asia has also been active in this area of work, and this presentation will report on a number of working groups in Northeast Asia. Prof. Okumoto is a key organiser of NARPI, the Northeast Asia Regional Peacebuilding Institute, an organization that works on the development of peace, and it offers two-week trainings in the summer for Northeast Asians and citizens of the world. The second summer training is scheduled for August 2012 in Hiroshima where people from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, Mongolia, Russia and other countries of South and Southeast Asia will participate. The courses offered during this training include: Peace Education, Peace Mediation, Restorative Justice, Trauma Healing, and Historical and Cultural Stories of Peace. 

              Okumoto’s expertise is in the area of utilizing an arts-based approach for peacework. She will present “ho’o pono pono,” a Hawai’ian method of reconciliation that was developed for peacework in collaboration with Johan Galtung, one of the modern day founders of peace studies and the founder of Transcend Theory. Okumoto will also introduce “lukasa,” a community-based peacework activity inspired by a Congolese village. She will demonstrate how the process of dialogic communication can be used while focusing specifically on “art that reveals and highlights conflict.” The work of peacebuilding is an art in itself.

 

Profile of the presenter:

is Professor of Peace Studies, Conflict Transformation, and English Literature at Osaka Jogakuin University. Her research fields are Conflict Transformation/Nonviolent Intervention, the Arts including Literature and Drama, and the relation between the two areas. She facilitates numerous peace training workshops at all levels–from high school, to university to elderly communities. She works with NGOs such as Transcend-Japan, Transcend-International, Nonviolent Peaceforce-Japan, ACTION-Asia and Global, and Northeast Asia Regional Peacebuilding Institute (NARPI). She holds a PhD in the Arts from Kobe College, Graduate School of Letters in Japan and an MA in Peace Studies from Lancaster University in the UK.