A short video was completed and we finally succeeded to set our website to host the big video file on our site.
We still miss those smiles and shining eyeballs of all students in Japan.
Boat tour in the shinny lagoon. 光り輝くサンゴ礁の海をゆく 2018年のヤップ島プログラムが、8月18日から29日まで、現地10泊の日程で行われ、日本から高校生大学生計9人が、ヤップ島タミル地区デチュムル村で、自然に近い現地の暮らしを体験させてもらいました。村人からは、連日、パンの実やタロイモ、魚、カニなどの食材を差し入れてもらい、マット編みや魚取りなど自然の中での暮らしの技を教わりました。
ECOPLUS conducted its flagship program, Yap-Japan Cultural Exchange Program 2018 from 18 to 29 August with nine students from high school to university in Dechumur village, Tamil, Yap. Provided cooked and un-coocked food like bread fruit, taro, fishes, crabs and others, students learnt a lot of locals skills like, weaving coconuts fronds or fishing in the ocean.
このプログラムは1992年に始めてから今年で27年目。デチュムル村では初めての実施でした。 Setting doors to the toilet and shower room. 用意してもらったトイレとシャワーにドアを付ける。 滞在したのは、コンクリート平屋建てのウィメンズハウス。女性たちの集会場です。トイレとシャワー、炊事場は、屋外に用意してもらいました。トイレは、地面を掘って7本の丸太を渡し、中央に穴を空けた構造。周囲をヤシの葉っぱで囲ってありました。周囲に生えていた木の丸い葉っぱは、トイレットリーフと呼ばれるソフトな肌触り。分解が早く環境に負荷がかからないので、この葉っぱでおしりをふきました。
The Program started 1992 and since then ECOPLUS continued the program almost every year. For Dechumur village, it was the first time to host the group.
The base of the program was the women’s house of the village. Next to the concrete building, local toilet, shower room and cooking place were set. Next to the toilet, some trees had very soft leaves called “toilet leaf,” so students used those for their daily use. It was easily degraded rather than toilet paper. Low impact was one of the key words of the program.
プログラムのハイライトは、2泊3日のホームステイ。1人づつ別々の家に引き取られていき、3日間を過ごしました。 During a home stay, a student learn how to weave coconut frond. ホームステイ先でヤシの葉編みを教わる。 ヤップには、米国などから新しい文化や経済活動が入り込んできていて、暮らし方は様々。コンクリートの家に電気洗濯機というような家もあれば、大きな木の下にヤシの葉ぶきの伝統的な小屋が並んで、海からの漁で暮らしを支えている家もありました。
共通しているのは、家族の間の親密な関係。ホームステイ中には親族一同が集まってのお祝いなどもあり、家族の強い絆を日本の参加者たちは強く感じたようです。
One of the most impressive experiences was homestay. Each student was accepted by a different family for 2 nights. Modern economy and culture are changing Yap’s traditional lifestyle but the situations are different family by family. A host family was living in thatched roof houses under a huge tree and another host family has electric washing machine. However, family ties are quite strong in all families. During the stay, some families held a celebrating gathering. Through the stay, student impressed by the strong bond among the family members.
Having so many new experiences, like going to fish with local boys in the lagoon, hunting crabs in night time, being surprised the brightness of the moon, students safely return to Narita airport in the morning of 29 August. From students, such comments were continued. “It looks like the program is not yet terminated. We will digest so many things we learnt and those will guide us toward the our own lives for long time.”
They will work together to make an activity report of the program and will held a reporting session in late autumn.
On 26 and 27 May, ECOPLUS conducted “a weekend farming workshop; rice planting” in Tochikubo village in Niigata Japan. Under the limitation of lodging space, we had eight participants from Niigata city and Metropolitan area.
We had water shortage caused by extremely small snow in previous winter in 2016, and low temperature and wet condition in 2017. This year we had enough snow as same as usual years but temperatures went up after March and it melted snow substantially. Farmers are worrying again the shortage of water.
On Saturday, we started planting seedlings in a smaller paddy which has around 800 square meters. Those paddies which have been growing rice without any chemical materials, the area was filled with so many creatures, like tadpoles, dragonflies and butterflies.
Thanks to the strong sunshine, surface of the mud is very warm. We set 4-6 seedlings in one position 1 centimeter under the surface.
One of the participants was came from Thailand but she was from the central part of big city, Bangkok. She and his Japanese husband were so good at planting works although it was the first time for them.
At the dinner so many dishes using wild vegetables just harvested by the chef from their hills were appeared. Some were boiled and mixed with sesame source or vinegar source, some were fried as “Templa”. We enjoyed the gorgeousness of the life in the mountain.
日曜日の作業前、苗を田んぼに運び込む It was also very nice weather on Sunday and one of the participants succeeded to see the beautiful sunrise at 4 o’clock in the morning.
After finishing rice planting using one hour and so, we had open air lecture from Mr. FUEKI Akira, a veteran farmer. He explained that in old days when the paddies were much smaller and narrow, they conducted rice plantings one paddy to next one moving water from upper paddy to lower one. He also taught that normally 20 pesticides, weed killers or other chemicals were used for rice growing in one season but for this totally organic rice paddy he uses no chemicals. Because of this, he needs to weed by hands at least three times before harvest in each paddies.
Social Agency(協働意識)
個人として権威から離れ、自ら思い描くことが出来る。行動することが出来る。それが西洋における啓蒙思想にもつながっていく、個人が考え,行動するという世界です。問題点の一つは、最後には「私がこの国を再び偉大にする」というような権威主義的なリーダーに行き着いてしまうということです。
私が推し進めたいのは、個人としてのAgency(行動意識)ではなく、社会的な行動意識です。いかに他の人々との連帯の中で、コミュニティの中で尊敬しあいながら、つながりあって行動できるか。ということです。難しいことです。みんな違っているからです。
この例の一つです。私が住むクライストチャーチでは、2011年2月の大地震の後、学生たちはフェイスブックで仲間を募って町の片づけ作業を始めたのです。6月に二度目の大きな地震が起こった時には2万4千人が組織されていました。大きな変化のためにともに汗を流し,行動したのです。
おりしも、米国では「Make America Great Again」のトランプ大統領が就任。英国のEU離脱、各国での保護主義への回帰などの中で、いかに世界のほかの人々とつながりつつ、身近なコミュニティの中での学びを深めていくかの議論が続きました。子育て、地域おこし、環境教育、持続可能性教育、野外教育、国際化などの様々な分野の人々が集まり、「豊かさとは何か」「どういう場所で、どう生きるべきか」などを真剣に考えた2日間でした。
エジンバラ大学はESDに関する中核的な役割を担う地域拠点(Regional Center of Expertise)になっていて、ヒギンズさんはその責任者でもあります。しかしヒギンズさんは「ESDという特別な新しい科目を教えるのではなくて、すべての科目に持続可能性についてのその地域における文脈を入れ込むべきなのだ」と強調していました。