The first dialogue session of the new semester took place at Yokohama Municipal Shinohara Junior High School, held over two days on September 4th and 8th.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The central question was: “How do you want the future world to be?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During these challenging times in Japan, when people are struggling just to get by in their daily lives, there are surely many children who think, “Why should I care about the world or peace when I’m barely managing my own life?” Just like many adults, this is probably how children truly feel deep down. With a desire to discuss this perspective as thoroughly as possible, we decided to structure this as a two-session dialogue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In response to the question “How do you want the future world to be?” the words most frequently used among the 200 third-year students were “peace” and “respect.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the two dialogue sessions, we held a reflection meeting with student representatives. One student quietly shared: “If I find myself surrounded by abundant light, I want to share even a little of that light with someone who is in darkness. Not so much for their sake, but because I want to do so in order to remain true to myself.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n