“Peace Begins Right Next Door”: Connections Between People Build the Future | Forum2050 Newsletter, July 2026

Hello. This is Takuzo Komabashiri, PR officer at Forum2050.

I am currently back at my family home in Japan for the summer holidays. It has been a while since I was last in Japan, and it is so hot! In Cambodia I can get around easily by tuk-tuk (a three-wheeled taxi), but in Japan I mostly walk or take the train. In the few minutes it takes to reach the station, I am pouring with sweat.

So I bought a parasol for the first time in my life. To be honest, I was skeptical, but it turned out to be surprisingly comfortable, and now it has become a companion I can’t do without.

Feeling this heat for myself, I realize that climate change is by no means a distant story; it has come right up close to our daily lives. Turning our eyes to the world through something close at hand may also be a first step in thinking about the future.

In the July 2026 newsletter, we hope to share the message that peace is not “an ideal for someone else,” but begins with “protecting what is precious to you.” If you have any questions or comments about the newsletter, please let us know by email or other means. Requests like “I’d like to know more about this” are very welcome too!

• Topics in this newsletter –

• [Our Activities]

• [Report from TODA Takao, President, Forum2050]

Our Activities

1. [Our Activities]
Recent main activities and events

Jun 21 Exchange of views with Kanome (Atlier de NATURA)
Jun 23, Jun 28 Interviews with Shomura (nursing university student) (materials development)
Jun 23 Study session on writing a paper on the effects of peace education
Jun 25, Jul 08 Meetings with Harunaka (Graphic Recording Designer) (for the Jul 26 and Sep 11 events)
Jun 27 Meeting with Curious Production Inc. (materials development)
Jul 02 Meeting with Yamamoto (Accenture) (Jul 29 lecture)
Jul 06 Meeting with Seichi no Kodomo wo Sasaeru Kai (Association for Supporting the Children of the Holy Land) (request for interviews in August)
Jul 10 Lecture at Japan International University (testing the draft outline of the “Peace as My Own Issue” materials)
Jul 11 Study session on NPO public relations (hosted by Suginami Collaboration Plaza)
Jul 12 Exchange meeting with Georgia (11th)
Jul 13 Exchange of views with Hiroshi Kinoshita and others (Customer Cloud Co., Ltd.)
Jul 14 Exchange of views with Kono (UNWG Newsletter Chairwoman)
Jul 15 Meeting with Yoshida and Matsuura (ICAN) (interviews in the Philippines)
Jul 18 Interviews at Wayo Kudan Girls’ High School (Principal Mizuno, high school students and their parents)
Jul 18 Interview with Sandia’s family

Report from TODA Takao, President, Forum2050

Dear all,

Just as I was writing this, the end of the rainy season was declared in the Kanto region. In this season of continuing intense heat, how are you all doing? Please take very good care of yourselves.

As for me, one after another, important people around me have fallen ill, and I have felt my own powerlessness keenly. I am now deeply appreciating how precious health is. In Forum2050’s activities, too, we often hold dialogues that place “peace” and “health” side by side as “things whose value you only understand once you have lost them.” Once again, I found myself thinking about what the two have in common.

■ “Peace as a pretty ideal” and “peace that goodwill alone cannot create”

“A peaceful and prosperous future” seems to be moving further away rather than coming closer.

In the situation in the Middle East, including Iran, Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen, and in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, the news is mostly grim. And though it is barely reported in Japan, in Myanmar, Sudan, the border between the DRC and Rwanda and elsewhere, precious lives are being lost at this very moment. These conflicts are beyond our power to resolve, and even if each of us thought about them seriously, we could not save the livelihoods, dignity and lives of the people being lost there.

“So isn’t it pointless to think about such things?”

“And to start with, isn’t the word ‘peace’ itself just a pretty ideal that can never come true?”

I keep thinking about this, waking or sleeping.

And not only thinking: I keep moving, trying to do what I can each day. As I do, little by little, I feel I am starting to see a somewhat different landscape.

One thing is this: whether creating peace or destroying it, people act to protect what is precious to each of them. Put the other way around, unless peace is recognized as something connected to that, “peace” remains no more than a pretty ideal.

The other is that, for this, appealing to people’s goodwill alone is not enough. We need to redefine the vague concept of “peace” as something that concerns each person’s livelihood, dignity and, in some cases, life itself.

■ A trial in Sendai: “What is precious to me” and “peace”

At the several universities where I teach, I always make a point of talking about peace at the end of the course. This month, at a university in Sendai, I held a trial class on “thinking about peace as your own issue.”

Rather than jumping straight into “What is peace?”, I first asked, “What is precious to you?” and received answers like the ones below. As you can see, while everyone is different, the answers seem to converge on friends, family and oneself.

Next, when I asked, “What is peace, to begin with?”, the students looked quite puzzled as they answered, and the results were as follows. These are answers from some of the students, presented faithfully, exactly as given and in the same order. The more each person thinks, the more they use all kinds of expressions to give answers full of individuality.

Then, in the next step, I ask, “How would you feel if peace were lost?”

This time the participants were university students around 20 years old, but in many cases, whether they are upper elementary school pupils or young working adults, and not only Japanese but also people from other countries, people reach a certain “realization” at this point.

The “realization” appears in many forms, but if I dare to sum it up in a single phrase, it is this:

“Losing peace = no longer being able to protect what is precious to me”

■ From “realization” to “my own issue”

This “realization” also means that “peace,” a pretty ideal, moves closer, to a greater or lesser degree, into the realm of “my own issue.”

So, as the final step, I ask, “What would you like to do for a peaceful future?”

The answers vary: donating, voting, following the news, studying international affairs. But at this point, more people begin to reframe their connections and relationships with the people around them “in the context of peace.” In other words, in answering this last question, they start to rethink and consider “peace” as their own issue, as a matter of “protecting what is precious to them.”

Of course, what new interests each person takes up as a result, and what actions they try to take, differ from person to person. I make a point of not commenting on whether these are good or bad, and let people speak freely.

■ A valuable “by-product” of the materials development process

While following the four steps I have just described in our current materials development (developing materials to help people think about peace as their own issue), we are now carrying out interviews in many different places.

This month (July), we interviewed Shomura of a nursing university, and (with the cooperation of Principal Mizuno of Wayo Kudan Girls’ High School) a third-year student at the school and her parents. (Principal Mizuno and Shomura, thank you so much for your cooperation.) And through an introduction from Kanome, who works every day on an agenda of connecting people through art, we were also able to visit a Nepalese family living in Nerima City. (Kanome, thank you for this precious connection.)

We are now carrying out interviews like these in various places to gather frank and diverse opinions from as wide a range of people as possible (especially young people, mainly junior high school students), as material (video footage) to get more people (especially people who don’t usually take much interest in the future or in peace, junior high school students and others) to think.

The materials development project itself is still in progress, but through this process we have been able to meet people we could not have met before, have conversations we could not have had before, and gain connections we could not have imagined before. With deep gratitude for these encounters and connections, we want to keep our activities moving forward.

From right: Sandia, Sita, Nagahara, Samipu and Kanome
Behind Sita, the flag of Nepal can be seen

■ Peacebuilding close to home = ?

Sandia (16) lives in a family of four. Sandia’s father runs a curry restaurant in Yamanashi Prefecture and was away when we visited, but Sandia’s mother Sita and younger brother Samipu (who turned 12 yesterday!) shared many stories with us about peace and about Japan.

We would like to use some of this as material for the learning materials mentioned above, but through this visit we also gained a great deal of learning that went beyond fulfilling the purpose of the interview.

Sandia’s family had built wonderful relationships with their (Japanese) neighbors, including the Japanese couple next door and Nagahara (90), a neighbor who also joined us for this interview.

It seems the rules on residence status for foreign nationals are being tightened, and Sita, who has no shortage of worries amid all this, spoke happily about the neighbors, saying, “They are like one big family.” The family’s front door is always left open, and neighbors from the housing complex drop by freely, drink Nepali tea, share meals, and look after Sandia and Samipu . . . It was a scene reminiscent of Japanese communities of the past.

Kanome, who had connected us, said quietly:

“Perhaps this space, this situation, is what peace is.”

I nodded deeply.

Facing diversity, connecting with one another, and helping each other protect the lives and dignity each person holds dear: I thought that the daily effort this takes is something each of us can do, in our own positions and circumstances.

Once again this has turned into a rather rambling piece of prose; please forgive me.

If there is anyone around you who might understand our activities, please introduce them to us. And if there is anyone around you who might listen to us, even for a short time, I will be glad to meet them anytime, anywhere, as far as I physically can. I hope we can widen the circle of empathy and action, even little by little. I sincerely hope that by continuing to move every day, even a little at a time, we can expand this network bit by bit.

To those who have kindly agreed to subscribe recently, thank you, and we look forward to staying in touch! For the path our organization has taken so far, please do take a look at our back issues when you have a moment.

And we would be grateful for your continued guidance and support.

Finally, with the intense heat continuing, please take good care of yourselves.

Jul 20, 2026
Koenji, Suginami City
TODA Takao
Email: toda@forum2050.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/takao.toda.54
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(This X account has finally passed 300 posts. It’s a modest effort, but I would like to keep building it up little by little.)