We are excited to announce that our Spring Used Book Market has officially begun! Come browse a huge selection of books and discover delicious products from ARI. Fri, April 17 – Sat, 25 *Closed on Sun, April 19OPEN11:00-16:00 On Saturdays
Merry Christmas! How are your holidays this year?
ARI hosted a Christmas party for our community members. We played bingo, exchanged gifts, and had a pageant, ARI style.
We have only a few more days left in 2023.
For our 50th anniversary, we held a commemorative ceremony and fundraising. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the many people who supported us and helped us celebrate our 50th anniversary.
We were also able to enjoy a vibrant communal life, with conversations without masks and a fully open dining hall.
As we approach the end of the year 2023, a new year is upon us.
We hope that you will continue to support us as we share this graceful learning place with more people and continue to sow seeds of peace in the world.
We wish you a very happy New Year!
On December 7, before the participants go back to their community, after their final presentations, all community members including ARI staff and volunteers went to Mt.Chausu in Nasu to see the snow.
Many participants came from tropical countries, and some were playing in the snow for the first time! They had a great time throwing snow each other, lying on the fluffy snow, building snowmen, and so on!
Now that this year’s participants have graduated, they are ready to work on to their own communities. Please remember them in your prayers this Christmas season. We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!
Your Seeds of Hope empower the dreams of rural leaders worldwide.
ARI participants in the class of 2023 celebrated their graduation ceremony on Saturday, December 9, and returned to their home countries with their dreams in their hearts. Your support will become Seeds of Hope that will be carried with the graduates to the rural areas in each country, and their work will create hope for more and more people.
As Christmas approaches, we invite you to entrust your Seeds of Hope with ARI’s enthusiastic participants.
Your donation will be used to help ARI participants from Asia, Africa, and other countries pay their travel and tuition fees, as well as monthly living expenses such as dormitory fees and food. We ask for your support for ARI’s work to develop grassroots rural development servant leaders, creating broad impact around the world.
Donations can be made by individuals, churches, or schools.
Please donate via the Christmas Special Donation page:
On Saturday, December 9, we held the 51st commencement service in unseasonably warm weather. 26 participants are now “graduates”!
Thank you to all those who attended the ceremony and those who remembered us from afar.
On December 12, we sent off 4 graduates with a lot of tears, hugs, songs and prayers. All the remaining graduates will leave on Friday.
Director Tomoko Arakawa described seedlings uprooted from their respective places to be transplanted and grown in the ARI community. These seedlings, our newest graduates, will be uprooted again from here to grow new roots in their original places and serve the people.
Please continue to remember our new graduates in their journey as rural leaders!
We have had the honor of inviting Ms. Keiko Holmes from Agape World to our campus at Tochigi to present her message on peace and reconciliation to the ARI community. As the Japanese coordinator for Agape World which is an organization dedicated to promote reconciliation between Japan and her former World War II prisoners of war (POWs), Ms. Keiko is no doubt a well-fitted speaker for this topic.
Her presentation to the ARI community was full of personal stories which touched the hearts of all who listened. We marveled at how her own personal tragic story led to a mission of touching great grief and trauma in the lives of those who experienced the horrors of war. Yet, the story does not end there; with boldness she pushed forward to encourage people on both sides of war to meet each other, find space for an apology, and reconcile with one another, finding friendship blossom from the seeds of forgiveness.
At the end of her presentation, she and her team, joined by ARI Director Tomoko-san, issued a deep apology for the mistakes and crimes that Japan had committed in World War II to the ARI community, wherein many Asian countries were represented. Her humble posture was deeply moving to everyone present, and in that moment the community realized that they were not just listeners, but direct participants of a peacemaking process. This further drove home the point that anyone and everyone can be agents of peace, when we are willing to apologize and accept one’s apology humbly and gracefully.
Ms. Keiko’s stories convey to us a sense of hope, that evil and suffering will not be the end, but that peace and love can have the final say.
Nao Suzuki, former ARI volunteer (1999. Current Co-Chair of NPO Greens, Editor-in-Chief of greenz.jp, and Associate Professor of Sustainability at Musashino University’s Faculty of Engineering, and resident of Isumi City, Chiba Prefecture), and Sawyer Kai (Symbiotic Revolutionary and founder of Tokyo Urban Permaculture) spoke about “Peace from the Soil” in the 22nd century and ARI in the context of “Peace in the World” on their YouTube online community “Ikashiau Design Village”.
How to live by continuing to create peace here and now – YouTube
https://youtu.be/6Byg4YitHqk?feature=shared
Participants of ARI successfully completed their study tour around Western Japan, where they break out of their usual classroom setting and come face-to-face with real persons and communities.
After a short midway break in Osaka, Participants took a ferry to Minamata and visited multiple sites to learn about the history of the Minamata Disease and its painful impact on the people in the community. They visited Minamata Disease Museum, the former Chisso company, the Hyakken Drainage site, and the eco-park made on the landfill (reclaimed land) area where the cenotaph for victims of Minamata Disease now stands.
On the next day, they visited the place where the first official Minamata patient was found, and heard the story of man named Karatachi, a patient of Minamata disease who does his best to carry on working and living in the community by growing oysters and oranges. The former city councilor of Minamata shared about how Minamata city changed their path of development and acted as a mediator between perpetrators and victims. The then-Mayor Mr. Yoshii was one of the few government officials who took initiative to acknowledge Minamata patients and apologize to them. This was the first time ARI heard about the recovery process of the division in Minamata city, inspiring both staff and Participants.
Later, Participants visited Kibou Mirai (Hope Future) Minamata – a social welfare home for patients of congenital Minamata Disease. They had the great privilege to hear directly from patients themselves and their stories. Everyone was moved by their determination and warm heart towards the community, and their hope for a future where all people can live in peace without killing one another. They got to meet Karatachi and another organic orange farmer, and heard about a family’s endeavor to connect people to the story and people of Minamata.
During the stay at Minamata, Participants resided with 15 host families, and on the last night they had a beautiful party with all host family members. They feasted on amazing vegan food made from local Minamata ingredients that everyone could enjoy, and ended the night with singing, dancing, and a wonderful closing speech from one of the Participants.
Over a long drive to Hiroshima, Participants were introduced to the three forms of violence as theorized by Johan Galtung, and were encouraged to reflect on the issues that they had seen and heard through this framework.
At the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Museum, Participants heard from a legacy speaker about the impact the bomb had on Hiroshima and its people. Through walks around the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, the hypocenter, the peace bell, the cenotaph and more, each contemplated the meaning of peace. At each place, Participants also offered prayers in their own language. A common sentiment was palpable among the Participants, “We want to try to take this message back to our communities, we need to work for peace.”
With this lingering feeling, everyone said goodbye to Western Japan and packed to return to the ARI campus back in Tochigi. We see that not only did Participants thoroughly enjoy the off-campus learning experience, but also receive inspiration from various people and stories in Japan to make changes in their own community.
To our many partners from all over Western Japan who made this tour possible, our staff members, volunteers, and especially our responsible drivers who drove tirelessly from destination to destination throughout the twelve-day period, we are incredibly grateful.
Today 11/18 (Sat) 23:00-23:30 and tomorrow 11/19 (Sun) 19:00-19:30 in Japan, an interview with our director, Tomoko Arakawa, will be aired on radio. She will talk about various stories behind ARI’s warm welcome towards community members from diverse cultural backgrounds.
FM COCOLO (Osaka): 11/18 (Sat) 23:00-23:30
FM Yokohama: 11/19 (Sun) 19:00-19:30
2023/11/19/日 19:00-19:30 | SUNSTAR WEEKEND JOURNEY | ＦＭヨコハマ | radiko
On 11/19 (Sun), ARI will be featured in the program “Eizo no Tochigi #34” on Tochigi TV as part of the history related to agriculture.
Please remember the activity of ARI that has been sending out leaders from Nasushiobara who are active in rural communities suffering from hunger, poverty, and conflict for 50 years.
Commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the Birth of Tochigi Prefecture “Eizo no Tochigi #34” 11/19 (Sun) 9:00-9:15 AM
This year, we have been covered by many media outlets for our 50th anniversary, and we have also had the opportunity to meet many people, both old and new, as Corona has settled down.
In September, we celebrated our 50th anniversary with 1,399 alumni from 62 countries and over 400 of our many supporters, both on-campus and online, from around the world.
Since the beginning of the year, the 50th reunion has been held every 5-10 years over a 3-month period, bringing together many old faces from Japan and abroad.
https://ari.ac.jp/en/50th-anniv
In October, many people worked together to create a domestic and international crowdfunding campaign.
https://readyfor.jp/projects/ari/announcements/293713
https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/support-rural-leaders-in-training-connnections/
November, ARI has been collaborating and reconnecting with many people over the past month.
The Western Japan Study Tour, which resumed last school year after Corona, has been a great opportunity for participants to learn about the social issues Japan has been facing and to visit different parts of the country.
https://ari.ac.jp/en/2023/11/17/western-japan-study-tour-2023-part-1/
We also conducted a Western Japan Caravan in which staff and training assistant visited Kwansei Gakuin, Doshisha and other supporters in the Kansai region.
At the Clover Festival held at Doshisha University in early November, members of DUARI: the ARI club of the Doshisha University supported the ARI by holding a booth. (Thank you to everyone who enjoyed and made the Mitarashi dumplings with special soy sauce, and thank you for participating in the “Eat Together” ARI!)
https://www.instagram.com/p/CzIriITL3HP/
ARI staff met with nine ARI Graduates as part of a regional meeting of graduate meeting organized by AFARI (American Friends OF Asian Rural Institute) at the ECHO Asian Agriculture and Regional Development Conference 2023 in Thailand.
https://ari.ac.jp/en/2023/11/14/ari-afari-echo-thailand/
In the U.S., ARI staff members met new and old friends by participating in the ECHO International Agricultural Conference held in Fort Myers, Florida, and visiting various places in the U.S.
https://ari.ac.jp/2023/11/16/ari-echo-florida-2023/
These are all connected to ARI’s efforts to seek world peace from “Peace from the Soil,” which seeks to change the world through the development of rural leaders and self-reliant communities.
For example, ARI participants in the West Japan Training Program are currently on a two-week bus trip to Minamata City in Kumamoto Prefecture in the south while learning about various social issues in Japan in Tokyo, Shizuoka, Kansai, and Hiroshima. This is a journey of encountering the social issues that Japan has experienced since the end of World War II and the people who are facing them in various parts of the country.
Rather than learning about Japan’s history as it used to be, the issues of pollution in Minamata and homelessness and discrimination in Kansai are social issues that their countries and communities are facing right now. This is a journey to confront the problems that are happening now, and to face the social issues that they themselves will encounter in the future as rural leaders of the next generation, as well as the social issues that accompany economic development.
As part of this years’ training program, Ms. Keiko Holmes will visit ARI next week on Friday, November 24, and hold a session with the participants. Last year, she visited ARI and held a session on reconciliation with participants from Southeast Asia and other countries that were colonized by Japan.
Agape World – Keiko Holmes OBE (agapeworldreconciliation.org)
In celebration of its 50th anniversary, ARI is developing various collaborative projects.
https://ari.ac.jp/2023/08/29/collaboration-workshop-klasse-espresso/
Connect with ARI as we share “Peace from the Soil”. Join us to build ARI’s commitment to world peace through eating and living together.
Watch all our online events again!
Join the ARI life with family and friends!
We're looking for on-campus volunteers
