this is the letter to my friends.
I just share it with you in this blog.
Dear Friends,
the reason I joined this activities is little long story.
it takes back to around 10 years ago.
when I was in secondary school, I tried to commit suicide unfortunately.
in that time, I always felt loneliness and could not find the value of life.
fortunately, I could not stop my life.
but then, I started to think the answer of my life."why am I living and where will I go after dearth?"
6 years later, I entered university.
And I joined Model United Nations Club which is club to discuss global issue.
at Summer Semester, we discussed the issue on the right of Children.
during the preparation for discussion, I studied child Soldiers.
the story of these children were quite terrible.
one 6 years old kid in Sierra Leone was kidnaped from village.
when he was kidnapped, he was forced to cut his mothers hand by a axe.
the armed group made him to do for the reason that they wanted to delete the place he can return.
after kidnapped, he got training to be soldier.
there is no choices without obeying them.
some time, he was forced to eat internal organs of friends who tried to run away but could not do.
this also made him to stay at camp.
12 years later, he became soldier who committed homicide and rape.
and he was no longer "Child" Soldier because he became 18 years old.
when the war ended, he could not understand what he should do in peace world.
he had no opportunity to study because the conflict took his time to study away.
he could not integrate the society. he need special mental care.
but UN and government could not take care due to limited finance.
then, he automatically moved to neighbor countries to join the armed group like the one that had kidnapped him.
people did not regard him as victim, but killer.
when I read this story and found 300 thousands child soldier, I really shocked the fact.
and compared with their stories, my childhood was totally peace even though I tried to commit suicide. I looked back my feeling to have tried to commit suicide. there was just lack of communication and I felt little shame.
then, I though I would like to change the situation. but I was just student in that time.
I thought what I could do. I found what I could do was to share the fact with students as much as I could. fortunately, I was president of Students Organization which had over 1000 people. I started to share.
but we needed to know the issue before sharing someone. so I went to several seminar on various issues. during seminars, I found terrible fact of other issues and all issues linked each other. in same time, I got good networks with people who work in UN, NGO, the Ministry of Foreign Affair, Media and others during seminars.
these human networks gave me the opportunity to join social activities. for example, there was G8 Summit in Japan, 2008. I, as one of core members, organized World Youth Forum for G8 Summit. I was really active in that time.
Oxfam Japan had petition campaign in same time. they asked me to cooperate with them on spreading. I cooperated with them and got over 600 petitions.
then, they asked me to join G8 Campaign during G8 Summit as temporary member.
yeah, I just went there and cooperated with them, although I was student.
these experience made me the way of living.
I found I would like to make smile of others as much as I can. I would like to make the world that everyone can enjoy.
I also found this is what I would do in my life and it means making the value.
fortunately, these experience and networks worked good. several NGOs gave me job offers when I finished my study in University.
so now, I am working at Oxfam.
this is my story.
sorry it is little long one, although I passed several parts.
now I strongly believe the world can be changed if we hope.
Mahatoma Gandhi said "Be the change you wish too see in the world".
so I am keep moving as much as I can.
thanks,
Yoichi
