Do You Know? The Great Journey of Rural Community Leaders Vol. 4

April 11, 2025
Makiko Abe

Do you know how ARI participants go through the process of coming to Japan?

ARI is currently running a four-part series following the participants’ journey to ARI as part of a Campaign.
The last in this series is Kai Shinoda, a staff member in charge of recruitment at ARI.
The participants’ journey to ARI was a great adventure, but the process on the ARI side, from selection to airline ticket arrangements, was also full of sweat and tears.

[Kai, ARI Admissions Staff]
Kai Shinoda took a year off from university in 2020 to volunteer at ARI. Little did he know at that in 2022 he would take up a fulltime position here as the admissions officer.

ARI’s application process is intensive. We are looking for very special people who seek the opportunity to train at ARI, not for their personal benefit, but for the sake of their people. During screening, Kai conducts online interviews with every applicant that has a Wi-Fi connection, which is almost all of them! It is not unusual for his schedule to include talking to a Mayan in the morning, a Maasai after lunch, and a Naga just before supper. This is one of the fun parts of his job, full of rich learning about the issues in these people’s countries and how they plan to tackle them.

Once the screening is finished, it is time to get those selected from their home villages all the way to Japan. It is a process Kai has done four times, supporting them along their journey, and he already has a lot of memorable episodes – unbelievable stories!

For example, last year a participant from Malawi arrived to ARI late because the government’s passport issuing system had been “cyber-hacked.” The opposition party was upset with the recent election results and threatened to erase important data and demanded money from the ruling party. Somehow the new government resolved the issue, but the date of birth on the passport that was finally issued was incorrect, which led to further delays.

Another example is getting to Japan from Guatemala, South America. The usual route is via the U.S., but just before the trip, the two young women coming from that country wanted to give up, because they heard I will take six months to process a transit visa and even that visa is difficult to get, due to the suspicion of the US that they might be trying to stay in the country illegally. Kai was able to arrange a direct flight from Mexico, which was VERY convenient, but it got cancelled because it flew over Russian airspace, which was no longer possible due to the war with Ukraine. In the end, their route took them Mexico to Eastern Europe to Asia – the longest way around the world!

One issue that plagued Kai this year was the visa application process for a participant from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The DRC has been in a state of conflict for almost 30 years. A few months ago, one of the main rebel groups, M23, began an intense offensive and our participant said it was too dangerous to move around the country to apply for documents. Instead he had to cross the nearby border into Uganda, and fly from there to Ethiopia, and then back to the capital of his own country! Thankfully, on March 27th, he finally arrived safely in Japan!

It is the job of the recruitment staff to take on these unimaginable difficulties one by one and find the best way forward. Nothing can replace the moment when they finally meet face to face at the airport in Japan!

In the end it is completely worth the time, effort, worry, and loss of sleep to bring these rural community leaders to ARI. According to Kai, “Some people may think it’s obvious and we don’t need to state it explicitly, but I think the most important step toward solving a social problem is to realize that it’s a problem in the first place. It is even more cautionary to note that when we spend our entire lives in a world full of problems, we are less likely to notice them.”
“We call our students, ‘participants,’ meaning those who teach each other, including staff and volunteers. At ARI, we, from similar circumstances and from completely different backgrounds, learn and teach each other, which makes us aware of problems once again. It is a place where we can then think together about our next move. I am always excited to see the changes that await these graduates at ARI before they return home.”

It is this positive attitude that gives Kai the power to tackle these tough tasks. That, and knowing there are still so many amazing rural leaders in the world that he has yet to meet.