Forum2050 Newsletter, November 2024

Dear Supporters,

Hello.

I’m Takuzo Komabashiri, in charge of public relations at Forum 2050.

Before we know it, November ends this week, and from next week it will be December, the busiest month of the year. Here in Cambodia, the Water Festival is held in November to celebrate the end of the rainy season. During the festival, long, narrow boats built using traditional Cambodian methods gather from each province in front of the Royal Palace, and races are held in which many crew members row with their oars to compete for speed over a 1.7-kilometer straight course. The boats go very fast, so the spectators get very excited. At night, boats decorated with colorful lights compete in beauty. The sight of these boats gathering from all over the river is truly magical.

Now, here is Forum2050’s November newsletter. This month, we bring you messages from Yuka Uchimura, Forum2050’s Executive Director on ICT, and Akari Itaya, a member who is currently in high school. Our organization wants to create spaces where children can talk about world peace with peace of mind (a “circle of peace created by children”), and as a first try we held an online exchange meeting connecting our members, JICA Overseas Cooperation Volunteers and children in Georgia.

Topics in this newsletter

• [Activity Report]

• [Message from Forum2050’s Executive Director on ICT]

• [A Letter from Akari Itaya]

Activity Report

Our main activities in November were as follows.

• Nov 9: Talk at a junior high school in Arakawa City, Tokyo
• Nov 9: Online exchange meeting with Georgia
• Nov 18: Discussions with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)
• Nov 21: Talk at a junior high school in Osaka City
• Nov 22: Talk at Ritsumeikan University
• Nov 30: Discussions with the City of Yokohama (scheduled)

Message from Forum2050’s Executive Director on ICT

Nice to meet you! My name is Yuka Uchimura, Forum2050’s Executive Director on ICT.

My professional field is building marketing operations for B2B companies and supporting the implementation of their initiatives. I got to know our President, Toda, through a learning program we both took part in, and since then I have been supporting Forum2050’s activities, albeit from behind the scenes.

I have been in the digital industry for more than 30 years, and in the digital field recently, especially since generative AI became available to the general public, I can feel the flow of information increasing at an accelerating pace.

Our organization’s basic activity is to create as many opportunities as possible for communication for the sake of children’s future: with children in Japan, of course, and with children around the world, across borders and language barriers.

The COVID-19 pandemic more or less forced the world to choose the path of a digital shift. This has advanced ICT further, and online communication has become part of everyday life. In a sense, this half-forced digital shift has greatly lowered the barriers to communication among people around the world, and it has become a tailwind for our activities as well.

Still, online communication cannot surpass face-to-face communication. While valuing in-person experiences as much as possible, we will continue our activities, benefiting from the advantages of both in-person and online.

We also feel that we need to report our activities properly to those of you reading this email. At present, we post information about our activities and future plans only on our website (https://forum2050.com/), but because we want more people to know about our activities, we will consider other options, including the use of social media.

We are also an NPO. To hold dialogues with even more children, your cooperation is essential. We therefore ask for your support through donations to sustain our activities.

https://forum2050.com/supporter/

We will continue our activities toward creating a peaceful future for children.

Message from Akari Itaya

Nice to meet you! My name is Akari Itaya, and I am currently a third-year high school student.

It has been more than a year since I became a member of Forum2050 in August 2023, before my trip to Rwanda, and I have had many valuable experiences.
Things that are firsts for Forum2050 are all firsts for me too, and each time I feel as if we are growing together.
I used to hesitate to take the first step, but now I can jump in on my own, and I have felt that I can gradually widen my world by myself.
This is all thanks to the members of Forum2050 and to all of you who support us.

Thank you so much.

In this newsletter, I have written about the recent “Exchange Meeting with Georgia” and on the theme “Nice to Meet You, Right to Vote.” I hope you will take a look.

I look forward to your continued support!

~ Exchange Meeting with Georgia ~

The writer is on the right in the top row.

On November 9, we held our first exchange meeting with Georgia.

This time, six people took part: four student members of Forum2050, one student living in Georgia, and one Japanese person currently posted in Georgia. We started with self-introductions, chose talk themes with a roulette, and discussed those themes.

During the roughly one-hour meeting, we talked about all kinds of themes, such as the charms of Georgia and Japan, our favorite foods, school subjects, sports and anime, and countries we would like to visit, and we got to know what is wonderful about each other’s countries.

There was also a moment when we got excited because we liked the same anime even though our countries are far apart, and overall it was a really fun time.

I’m looking forward to the second exchange meeting!

~ Nice to Meet You, Right to Vote ~

On a personal note, I turned 18 this year, became an adult, and gained the right to vote.

Until now, my parents always took me with them when they went to vote, but when it came to voting myself, there was so much I didn’t know: whom to vote for and how to look into it.

There were also moments in the run-up to the vote that felt odd to me.

One was that when I was wearing my school uniform, I was almost never handed the flyers given out during street speeches.

This is very cheeky of me, but I walked past thinking, “I have the right to vote, you know~.”

By the way, when I went up and asked for one myself afterwards, I was given one.

The other was how little interest I had in elections before becoming an adult.

I went to polling stations and saw posters, so it isn’t that I had “no” interest at all, but it was only after I actually became a third-year high school student and my friends and I gained the right to vote that I started watching candidates’ broadcast campaign speeches and visiting candidates’ websites on my own, and talking about it with my friends.

From these experiences, I felt that both the candidates and the 18-year-olds are not yet used to 18-year-olds having the right to vote, and are somewhat unsure about it.

At the same time, I also think it was good that I could gain the right to vote at 18.

I was happy to cast my one vote, but I am even happier that it became an opportunity to take an interest in elections and politics.

Finally, the low voter turnout among young people sometimes becomes a topic of discussion, and I think it is important to find ways to get young people interested in elections as a countermeasure.

But more than that, I hope that everyone who has the right to vote, as well as the high school and junior high school students who will gain it in the future, can take pride in having the power to choose the direction of society themselves, and value their own single vote.