![\"Steven](\"https://storage.googleapis.com/syncable-app/upload/3effcab6-56a2-4291-9ed0-6bbb00207801.jpg\")
Greetings, everyone — thank you, as always, for your warm support!
One week has passed since we launched our Western Japan Study Tour crowdfunding campaign, "Living Kindly with Neighbors," and we have already surpassed ¥1.91 million in total support from 130 generous donors. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.
Today, August 9th, marks 81 years since the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.
On August 6th, the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, we shared an update about Thomas Mathew, who graduated from ARI in 1988. Hearing testimonies in Hiroshima during his own Western Japan Study Tour changed the course of his life — he went on to bring hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) to India for the first time, produce a documentary on nuclear testing, and carry the baton of peace forward into the world.
(Read the full story here: https://syncable.biz/en/campaign/10070/report/14121#campaign-tabs)
At ARI's Opening Ceremony in 2023, the year we celebrated our 50th anniversary, Mr. Steven Leeper, former Chairman of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, joined us as a guest and left us with these words:
"I love ARI with all my heart. I have never seen a place like this — an organization of this size that has achieved such complete self-sufficiency simply doesn't exist elsewhere. We live today in a civilization of power, but the atomic bomb taught us that violence can no longer resolve our conflicts. Unless we graduate into a civilization of love, humanity has no future. ARI embodies that graduation — it is a model unlike any other in the world."
ARI advocates for a "peace from soil," beginning right where we stand. Practicing peace, each of us individually, is never an easy thing.
This campaign's theme is "Living Kindly with Neighbors." We believe that the only way to change the world is by changing ourselves.
When you first encounter ARI, it might feel like watching a vivid documentary in a movie theater. The diversity brought by participants from Asia and Africa, and volunteers and interns from places like the United States and Germany, along with the way our rural community leaders confront the world's social issues, all live and breathe, viscerally, within this community.
But I believe ARI's real strength lies in going beyond that. Whether you like it or not, it asks something of you — of your own self.
For our participants, learning changes who they are, changes the regions where they live, and that learning is passed on, changing their communities in turn. Twenty-two people standing at the very front line of the world's social challenges — sitting together at the same table, sharing a meal. That is ARI.
Once you see that, it is no longer someone else's story. It isn't a "kind world where someone else does something for you" — instead, it presses in on you with real urgency: for the world to change, you yourself must change.
When you change yourself to live kindly with your neighbors, the world changes. At ARI, the world comes pressing toward you. You are asked to change yourself, and it is asked of you as your own personal matter. It takes real energy.
For those of you who hear the stories of our Western Japan Study Tour participants and feel the challenges of distant countries as your own, we believe that giving is not simply a means of supporting us — it is also an opportunity for you, our supporters, to newly encounter the world yourselves.
We will continue our challenge toward the Next Goal of ¥2.2 million through September 30th (Wednesday). We are deeply grateful to be able to deliver this learning opportunity together with all of you.
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Today, we’d like to share a message from Mr. Thomas Mathew, a graduate of ARI from India, who visited Hiroshima during the WJST in 1988—an experience that profoundly influenced the rest of his life.
"Originally, my expectations for ARI were to experience life in Japan and to acquire various skills to lead rural communities in my homeland, India. Peace was not an immediate priority for me. However, during the WJST at the Hiroshima YMCA, I watched footage portraying the dreadful reality of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and I listened to the firsthand testimonies of the hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors). Their stories deeply touched my heart.
At the time, I took great pride in being a citizen of India, a nuclear-armed nation (India conducted its first nuclear test on May 18, 1974). That sense of pride vanished in an instant in Hiroshima, and I became determined to convey the message of peace from Hiroshima and Nagasaki wherever I went.
In August 1990, the first-ever visit of hibakusha to India was realized. We traveled extensively across India, meeting with thousands of students and peace activists, participating in media interviews, and engaging with political and religious leaders. Furthermore, I produced a documentary on the reality of India’s nuclear tests conducted in May 1998. This drew international attention, and I was invited to present it at the Hague Appeal for Peace in 1999. There, I met five Nobel Peace Prize laureates and conveyed to them the terrifying reality of India's nuclear testing.
ARI ignited my inner passion for world peace and gave me the strength to transform it into a driving force for tirelessly pursuing a peaceful and just world."
🚌Please support us to make the Western Japan Study Tour a reality!
Give 22 Rural Community Leaders from Around the World a Chance to Learn from "Pain and Rebirth"!
世界の農村コミュニティリーダー22名に「痛みと再生」を学ぶチャンスを！あなたの寄付が隣人とやさしく生きる世界を作ります。
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[The True Servant Leader: Western Japan Study Tour (WJST) at Seirei Social Welfare Community in Hamamatsu]
Our crowdfunding campaign to realize the WJST has finally begun!
We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude for everyone’s enthusiastic support from the very first day.
Now, the National High School Baseball Championship at Koshien begins today. Shizuoka's representative, Seirei Christopher High School, is actually one of the places ARI visits during the WJST.
Today, the Seirei Group supports the lives of many citizens in western Shizuoka, spanning fields from healthcare and welfare to education. However, its origins lie in accepting tuberculosis patients who were often isolated from society. Every year, ARI participants visit the Seirei History Museum to learn what it truly means to be a servant leader through the life and words of the founder, Mr. Tamotsu Hasegawa, who dedicated his life to serving others and responding to the needs of the community.
Last year, one participant shared this reflection:
"I am used to hearing “do your best to serve while you are living (in this life)” but today I learned from Mr. Hasegawa’s act of donating his body to the medical school for students to learn from, that it is possible to serve even after passing away. "
The light of God is falling Upon life's common way;
The Master's voice still calling, "Come, walk with Me today";
No duty can seem lowly to him who lives with Thee,
And all of life grows holy, O Christ of Galilee!
Hymn 393, which serves as the school song for Seirei Christopher High School and echoes across Koshien Stadium, perfectly embodies the spirit of a true servant leader.
🚌Please support us to make the Western Japan Study Tour a reality!
Give 22 Rural Community Leaders from Around the World a Chance to Learn from "Pain and Rebirth"!
世界の農村コミュニティリーダー22名に「痛みと再生」を学ぶチャンスを！あなたの寄付が隣人とやさしく生きる世界を作ります。
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Thank you as always for your warm support!
As we continue our challenge toward the Next Goal of 2.2 million yen, today we would like to introduce the "Japanese Self-Introduction Videos of Our Participants," currently being released on our official SNS channels (Instagram and Facebook).
This video initiative was created not only to convey the depth and value of learning through the "Western Japan Study Tour" scheduled for November, but also to serve as an "entry point" for you to discover what kind of impact the participants studying at Asian Rural Institute (ARI) will bring to their home countries and the world after returning home.
The 22 participants gathering from Asia, Africa, and Latin America are leaders who have stood on the front lines of challenges such as food insecurity, poverty, and environmental degradation in their respective communities, working to support their people.
Having been in Japan for about four months, devoting themselves to daily learning and farm work, they share—to the best of their ability in Japanese—their activities back home and their hopes for the Western Japan Study Tour.
By connecting with the "faces" and "thoughts" of the leaders supported by your generosity, we hope you feel a little closer to the real-world challenges they face around the globe.
Please listen to the honest, heartfelt words of our participants on our official SNS!
🎥 Watch the videos here (Official SNS):
We humbly ask for your continued warm support and help in sharing this campaign until the final day on September 30!
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