Dear supporters,
Hello.
This is Takuzo Komabashiri, PR officer at Forum2050.
One of our most important activities is our regular meeting, held every Sunday at 8:00 a.m. At the meeting we report on the progress of our activities and discuss what we need for upcoming ones. Participants also share news about their own lives, and, where needed, get advice from other members or exchange views on what was shared. About ten members gather each time, and everyone exchanges views as equals, regardless of position or age. Besides students, our members include people from private companies, public institutions and universities, a school principal, entrepreneurs, doctors and many more, so there always seems to be something new to discover. The age gap between our members is more than 50 years, and every time a younger member offers a sharp insight, everyone is impressed.
At our last regular meeting, we exchanged views on a grant application the organization is submitting, and there was a lively discussion about the difficulties of peace education and what sparks people’s interest in it.
“Why can’t schools go deeper into peace education?” “People tend to think of peace as simply the absence of war, but we need time to think for ourselves, as something that concerns us personally, about ‘what is not peace.'” “The moment you have a question is the moment to learn.” “Our organization’s role is not to reach a single conclusion but to hold dialogue.” “Even changing your neighbor is hard, and changing the thinking of others in the future is harder still. When each person’s inner peace is stable, they can build relationships with others (your own happiness leads to the happiness of others).” With comments like these, we spent a truly stimulating Sunday morning.
By the way, three of our members, including me, join from overseas: it is 5:00 a.m. in Bangladesh, 6:00 a.m. in Cambodia and 1:00 a.m. in the United States. Undaunted by the tough time differences, we enjoy taking part every time!
This December 2025 issue of our newsletter reports on our organization’s partnerships with local governments and introduces a new member.
If you have any questions or comments about the newsletter, please let us know by email or other means. Requests such as “I’d like to know more about this” are very welcome too!
Topics in This Newsletter
- [Our Activities]
- [Monthly Report from TODA Takao, President, Forum2050]
- [Message from a Member]
Our Activities
Main recent activities and events
Nov 20 – Dec 20
Nov 27: Talk at Nishi-Kamakura Elementary School
Nov 27: Meeting with Curious Production on creating educational materials
Dec 7: Exchange meeting with Georgia (with participants also joining from Bangladesh and the United States)
Dec 13: Took part (as a panelist) in the “Listening Kick-Off Meeting” (a listening session hosted by the Mayor of Suginami City)
Dec 18: Talk at Buso High School
Dec 18: Meeting with experts on an empirical paper based on our survey data
Monthly Report from TODA Takao, President, Forum2050
Dear all,
Only a little of this year remains. I imagine you are all even busier than usual. Thank you for taking the time, even so, to read this humble report. There is no end to the things I would like to tell you, but I will hold back and keep my report as compact as I can.
This time I would like to report on our partnerships with local governments.
It has been a little over two years since we began our activities in earnest, and so far we have worked in partnership with Yokohama City, Mitaka City, Wako City, Nagaoka City, Suginami City in Tokyo and others. In most cases, the partnership has taken the form of being commissioned to carry out part of a peace program organized by the local government. With Yokohama City, we served as speakers and facilitators in a series of peace memorial programs in fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2024. With Mitaka City, we were lecturers for the city’s Global Citizen Course. With Wako City, we were lecturers for peace education activities at the city’s three public junior high schools. With Nagaoka City, we were lecturers for peace education activities and exchange events run by the city (its international association). And with our home ward, Suginami City, we have collaborated by holding events with support from the city’s NPO grant program, among other things.
When we founded the organization about three years ago, since our ultimate goal is to contribute to world peace, we talked about our dreams and had many discussions about how to expand globally. Now, however, we have come to focus on the importance of peace starting right where we stand, and on what we learn from dialogue with children there.
As our relationships with local governments have grown closer, little by little I have come to see the concerns and the seriousness of each of them. I used to hold the view that local governments’ work on peace and international exchange was, if anything, often rather stereotyped: sharing the terrible experiences of war, and international exchange events as a way of keeping up relations with other countries (mainly in Europe and North America, and neighboring countries). I am now beginning to realize that this view was wrong.
As for peace programs, 80 years after the war, many people in local government recognize that simply sharing terrible wartime experiences and advocating the importance of peace no longer speaks to people’s hearts very much, especially as the number of storytellers who lived through the war keeps shrinking. They seem to be seriously searching for a new kind of peace program. As for international exchange as a showy event, the number of foreign residents and inbound visitors is rising rapidly, and people are coming to Japan from many countries, not just from Europe and North America. In this current of the times, there is a growing need to work, with concrete issues in mind, on how to overcome the various frictions and problems between foreign residents and Japanese people and deepen mutual understanding.
On the other hand, when it comes to themes such as peace or multicultural coexistence, every community has people with a range of views and values. Local governments (including the public schools under them) must take great care that these themes do not simply become politicized and deepen divisions, and it seems that, out of such concerns, they often cannot take bold steps.
And as these relationships with local governments deepen, I also keenly feel that the existence and role of civil society organizations like Forum2050 will become ever more important.
People often ask us, “What kind of future is Forum2050 aiming for? What kind of peace do you want to pursue?” Of course, each of us thinks seriously about these questions. But what matters is not to rush to a conclusion such as “this is the future we want” or “this is the right approach.” What matters is to build a world in which more people, especially the young people who will lead the next generation, can face these questions and keep up a dialogue while respecting one another.
Today, as I write this, we had our regular meeting in the morning, and we discussed what peace education should look like in Japanese society today and what Japan is missing now. Our members, from elementary school children to older people, differ in age and position and live scattered all over the world, yet not a single opinion that came out was the same as another. Everyone is different, yet everyone can discuss while respecting each other’s views and showing regard for others. I experienced this again today, and I think it is truly wonderful. Today I once again felt a premonition that a forum like this, or this way of being a forum, will complement the efforts of local governments and schools, and that one day it will be useful to the nation and the world as well. I am sure it will.
As one example, this month I spent a whole day with Mayor Kishimoto of Suginami City and was able to talk with the mayor about many things, which was a great gain. Suginami City, where Forum2050 is registered, is also where ordinary citizens (especially the women who ran fish shops) called for and started the petition against atomic and hydrogen bombs, ahead of the rest of the world. It is also a community that is home to many writers and people in publishing, and to many places where young people gather. However, amid an increasingly chaotic world situation and the challenges facing Japanese society as its relationship with other countries changes significantly, I could sense how difficult the problems are for a municipality of 580,000 people (with a growing foreign population expected to reach 4%): who should do what, and how, right now, to hand a peaceful future over to the next generation… But I also felt that, precisely in such circumstances, more and more people are looking for a “space” like Forum2050, where people of many generations and from many places can talk freely and as equals while respecting one another.
Also this month, there was new progress in the exchange meetings with Georgia that Forum2050’s young members are leading. Sharleen (from Bangladesh), who newly joined the organization through an introduction by our Vice President Shoji, took part, as did Tsukuba, who is studying abroad and joined from the United States (where it was the middle of the night). Before anyone noticed, the conversation had continued for more than two hours across four countries. Our young members will report on this at another opportunity.
With Mayor Kishimoto of Suginami City, Tokyo. I was invited as a panelist to the mayor’s “Listening Kick-Off Meeting.”
We received a certificate of commendation from Mitaka City for our message for peace.
The city also gave us a peace calendar filled with children’s wishes for peace.
Only a little of this year remains. Was this a wonderful year for you? And will next year be a wonderful year? Thank you so much for your warm support over the past year. We hope you will continue to support us. And if there is anyone around you who might be willing to lend us a hand, please do put them in touch with us. I have a feeling that next year will probably be a very important year for Forum2050, as we move on to our next stage.
Finally, as the winter cold sets in, please take very good care of yourselves. And may you have a heartwarming end of the year and New Year.
With gratitude, we wish you a peaceful Christmas and a New Year filled with hope♡
Dec 21, 2025
Koenji, Suginami City
TODA Takao
Email: toda@forum2050.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/takao.toda.54
X: https://x.com/forum2050?s=21&t=-jQeTjzOoHjrmEbKJvNwNg
Message from a Member
Nice to meet you. My name is Ichiha Amaya, a first-year high school student, and I joined the Forum2050 management team this summer. Thank you so much for your continued warm support.
Since I have the chance to write for the newsletter today, I would like to talk about the connection between “education” and “peace,” which I am interested in.
I have been interested in education since junior high school, but in April of my first year of high school, a TV commercial by AC Japan that I saw sparked a strong interest in educational support. There are systems and frameworks for educational support, but I felt that often things don’t really get moving unless someone takes the first step. “Then I’ll be the one to take the first step.” With that thought, I have continued to explore educational support.
As I learned about educational support, I came to feel that “education and peace are connected.” What led me to this was a JICA-hosted thematic event at the Ninth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD 9), held in Yokohama in August. I went on my own to this event, one of the few that high school students could attend. There, I heard from people from countries such as Senegal, Zambia and Madagascar.
Through this, I learned that children who cannot receive adequate education are living in poverty or are affected by conflict, in environments that could never be called peaceful. And I came to feel that, if I want to work in educational support in the future, I need to learn about and explore peace as well. By deepening my understanding of peace, I might one day, when I am in a position to provide educational support, have something to pass on to children. That thought is why I decided to join the Forum2050 management team.
Now that I have joined Forum2050, I think I will meet many people and learn through all kinds of experiences. I still have a lot to learn, but as a member of the Forum2050 management team, I want to do my very best.
Thank you, and I look forward to your continued support.
Photo from the JICA TICAD thematic event
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Forum2050 operates under the concept of ‘Children of the World: Each Child’s Vision for the Future Shapes Humanity’s Destiny,’ collaborating with businesses, schools, educational institutions, and others. Together with children, we create opportunities for them to contemplate peace and development in the future human society, fostering partnerships.
