JAPAN DAYS 8

Day 8: after excellent breakfast at Hotel Metropolitan in Tokyo travelled by Shinkansen to Nasushiobara north of Tokyo and around 85k from the Fukushima Nuclear facility which was so heavily damaged by the Tsunami. I am making an overnight visit to the Asian Rural Institute (ARI). The institute exists as an international training centre for grass roots leaders and was founded in 1973 by The Revd Dr Toshihiro Takami and by using sustainable, organic agriculture, and community development the participants learn from each other how to live a life that is healthy and dignified. Throughout the training a multicultural multi-faith community is set up in which everyone actively participates. Learning and growth are experienced together in community. A significant part of the training lies in the daily labour required to maintain a self-sufficient farm. Participants manage their own fields, care for livestock, and cook  and serve the food they raise.  Steve Cutting who handles ARI's ecumenical relations took me round the complete site (comprising 6 hectares) from machinery to the pig stys to the one and a half tons of sweet potatoes harvested yesterday, to the egg production unit and the duckpond!  Had a one hour meeting with The Revd Kenichi Otsu, Director and Chair of the Board of ARI in which we looked at the ways in which The Methodist Church in Britain might work more closely with ARI, on the one hand with encouraging people in Great Britain to serve at ARI for a short or long term as a volunteer and on the other to actively seek how across Africa and Asia we might identify individuals who would be ideal participants.  Ate my lunch at a round table with people from 7 different countries and in the evening at a similar round table with a different group from 6 different countries. ARI is truly international at all levels. Access more information by going to www.ari-edu.org 

Alan Ashton 28th October 2012.