For the past eight years, ANT-Hiroshima has marked the beginning of autumn with the Asian Health Institute‘s three-day workshop in Hiroshima. This year, 12 trainees from 10 Asian countries participated in the 28-30 October workshop, which is part of a six-week “International Course on Leadership for Community Health and Development” that took place at AHI’s training facility in Aichi Prefecture. The trainees, mainly representing NGOs that work for public health, come together in Japan to share expertise with each other in order to improve their capacity as community leaders and increase local participation in public health initiates across multiple sectors.
The portion of the training coordinated by ANT-Hiroshima began by teaching participants about Hiroshima’s history and then introduced them to a number of social welfare or peace-related initiatives in the city, which function as case studies for the trainees.
On the first day, ANT-Hiroshima Executive Director Tomoko Watanabe shared with participants how the experiences of Hiroshima inspire her work. After lunch, participants visited Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and Park to deepen their knowledge of the city’s history. Finally, Tomoko-san’s mother, Teruko Ueno, shared her experience of the atomic bombing with the group. A thorough knowledge of the past is a necessary foundation for understanding how and why many organizations in Hiroshima work, and perhaps trainees reflected on the relationship between their own organizations and the history of their communities.
The next day, the group visited Motomachi Elementary school, then split into two groups to see either the welfare corporation Hagukumi no Sato or Tabete Karō Kai and retired social worker Chikako Nakamoto. Please read last year’s blog post about that portion of the training for more details.
The third day began with a guest lecture from Masae Yuasa, a professor in the Hiroshima City University Faculty of International Studies. Professor Yuasa presented trainees with a critical view of peace and anti-nuclear activism in Hiroshima and included some of her own experiences of intellectually grappling with mass human tragedy.
The group then had lunch at the recently opened Social Book Cafe Hachidori-sha and listened to a talk by owner Erika Abiko. Abiko-san explained that her motivation for opening the cafe was to create a space where people felt comfortable having open, productive discussions about peace and other social issues. She also detailed the practical side of how she gathered funds and volunteers to help build Hachidori-sha.
For the final sessions of the workshop, the group adjourned to the ANT-Hiroshima office, where trainees discussed ANT’s work through a question and answer session with ANT staff and three participants in ANT’s Hibaku Taiken Keishō Juku, a class aimed to give participants a thorough knowledge of the atomic bombing and raise their capacity as memory keepers of Hiroshima’s experience. The three Juku participants are also trained by Hiroshima City to work as official memory keepers. The group was particularly interested in the memory keepers’ work, as well as their three-year training process.
