Forum2050 Newsletter, December 2024

Dear Supporters,

Hello.

I’m Takuzo Komabashiri, in charge of public relations at Forum 2050. The end of the year is now close at hand. What kind of year was 2024 for you? For our organization, it was a year of great strides: more young members joined, we took part in many talks and events, and we held discussions and workshops with local governments and universities. To be honest, this time last year we could never have imagined being this active. I believe that behind this success lay valuing each and every encounter, supporting one another, and never giving up. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and next year, too, we want to keep working hard while supporting one another.

Topics in this newsletter

• [Activity Report]

• [Greetings from the Vice President]

• [Message from Forum2050’s Akinori Kajita]

• [Message from Forum2050 member Maaya Fujimoto]

Activity Report

Our main activities in December were as follows.

• Dec 7: Online exchange meeting with Georgia
• Dec 14: Talk at an event for students and parents at a junior high school in Tokyo
• Dec 24: Talk at a high school in Chofu

Year-End Greetings from the Organization (written by Vice President Shoji)

2024 is drawing to a close. Thank you very much for everything this year. On behalf of the organization, I would like to express our heartfelt gratitude for your support.

I, Shoji, am a Vice President of our organization, but in my everyday life I am posted in Bangladesh in South Asia for a separate main job. Because Islam is the state religion here in Bangladesh, the usual weekend for public institutions and the like is not Saturday and Sunday but Friday and Saturday. Friday is especially important: the prayer just after noon on Friday, around 13:30, is the most important worship of the week, and many people who are busy on other days put on Islamic dress and go to the mosque to pray at this time. For that reason, many organizations with one day off a week take Friday off. I think very few Japanese people regularly visit the religious places of their faith, but many probably go to a shrine for the first visit of the New Year. It is no exaggeration to say that New Year’s Day and New Year’s Eve the day before are special days for Japanese people. When the year-end and New Year holidays come around, I too feel an indescribable excitement and sense of uplift.

In Bangladesh, however, New Year’s Day is an ordinary weekday. If New Year’s Day happens to fall on a Friday or Saturday, it is a weekend, but if it falls on Sunday through Thursday, it is a weekday. New Year’s Day 2025 is a Wednesday, so for me it will be a working day. Living in another culture also means accepting another culture, and I am telling myself, a little forcibly, that I want to be the kind of person who finds working on New Year’s Day refreshing.

These days, we tend to feel that the whole world is connected through the internet, that as long as we have money we can travel anywhere regardless of borders, or to have the illusion that as long as we can speak English we can understand everyone in the world. But there are still diverse cultures everywhere, and clashes and conflicts arising from differences in culture and values are not rare. Looking around the world, it is only natural that the society each person can be involved in is not that large.

In our organization, even across different generations, places of residence, backgrounds and circumstances, we value dialogue, strive to understand one another, and, thinking about the future, work to make the world even a little better. We would be most grateful if you, too, while welcoming the coming New Year with a fresh spirit, would reflect with us on a world in which diverse people and societies exist, and join us in our activities for the future. All of us at Forum2050 look forward to your continued support in the New Year.

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

The sun setting over the great Padma River (a tributary of the Ganges), which flows through the city of Rajshahi in western Bangladesh

Message from Forum2050’s Akinori Kajita

To our supporters,

Thank you very much for always supporting Forum2050. My name is Kajita, and I am a member of the management team. I am writing for this issue of the newsletter. Thank you for reading.

In this first installment, I would like to tell you how I came to be connected with Forum2050 and the feelings I have had along the way.

How my feelings for children began

First, let me briefly introduce myself. I am currently the principal of a public junior high school. The environment surrounding education has been changing rapidly in recent years, starting with reforms to teachers’ working practices, and every day I work to build a school where children and staff can be happy.

Since I was a child, I longed to go abroad and wanted a job that used English. I also dreamed of becoming a diplomat or an interpreter, but I chose to become a teacher because I wanted to share the joy of learning with children through the things I love, “music” and “English.”

The challenge of an overseas posting

Even after becoming a teacher, the dream of “living abroad someday” stayed in a corner of my heart. That was when I came across the program for dispatching teachers to Japanese educational institutions overseas. When I learned that I could “work as a teacher at a Japanese school overseas,” I immediately consulted my principal and began preparing to make that dream come true. Then, in April 2008, I was assigned to the Japanese School in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The country was said to be one of the poorest in the world. Going there with three young children filled me with anxiety, but as a family we made the positive decision that “we’ll manage somehow.” There were concerns about the developing environment and safety, but our connections with local people and with Japanese people posted abroad were a great support, and that experience is still engraved in my heart. And the bonds formed at that time were the beginning of my relationship with Forum2050.

“Kyoiku” as growing together with children

What we value is “children’s own thoughts and wishes.” Education is sometimes seen as something one-directional, but I place importance on “kyoiku” written with the character for “together” (共育) rather than “teach” (教育), that is, adults and children learning and growing together.

For example, the children’s songs “Suzume no Gakko” (The Sparrows’ School) and “Medaka no Gakko” (The Killifish School) are often compared. The former depicts a strict teacher, while the latter depicts a teacher who learns together with the children. Like the latter, I have valued an attitude of blending in among the children and growing together with them.

It is said that children today have low self-esteem and tend to hesitate to take on challenges. In reality, however, each of them has real thoughts and wishes and lives earnestly every day. Isn’t it our role as adults not to suppress those thoughts, but to draw them out and connect them with society?

Forum2050 provides a place that respects children’s individuality and wishes and nurtures the sense that these can be useful to society. Through such experiences, children will come to accept “themselves just as they are” and grow into adults who can shape their own happiness.

The joy of growing together

Why not experience with us the wonder of growing together with children? Through Forum2050’s activities, I believe both adults and children will gain new insights. Thank you very much for your continued warm support.

Akinori Kajita

Message from Forum2050 member Maaya Fujimoto

Hello.

I’m Maaya Fujimoto, a member of Forum2050.
Thank you for everything in 2024. I look forward to your support in 2025 as well.

It has been a year since I met Toda at a talk in Yokohama City. Since I started working as a member in January, I have had many different experiences over about a year. As a student, I am in a position where it is hard to do big activities, but every day I think about what I can do even as a student.

For me, the biggest experience this year was the talk at JICA’s Education Cooperation Week in September. It was my first in-person talk. This talk led to various other activities, and many different people became interested in what we do.

In 2025, I will work hard to do many new things and to do what I’m doing now even better!