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December 1997
The Nobel Peace Prize for NGO's campaign
School Festivals exhibiting the pictures
About the FSUN 1998 General Meeting
Boutros Ghali Award Committee held at the UNU
Charity Activity by the FSUN Seiban office
| The Nobel Peace Prize for NGO's campaignThe Nobel Prize Committee in Norway announced that the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and its American coordinator, Jody Williams, on Wednesday, December 10, were the recipients for the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for a global effort that resulted in a treaty signed by 122 countries to ban land mines.With this decision by the Nobel Prize Committee, Japanese government that had been reluctant to agree to total ban of land mines changed its policy and decided to join the treaty. This decision by the Japanese government would be significant for supporting the world opinion to ban all kinds of land mines. It is estimated that more than 100 million land mines are still all over the world including Cambodia and Afghanistan, and over 2000 people are losing their arms, legs and even their lives by those land mines left under the ground. The FSUN has attached great importance to this issue and provided 4000 artificial legs to people in Cambodia. The FSUN has been credited for taking an active part for this issue with suggesting ban land mines to the Secretary General, Ms.Mongella at the 95 World Conference on Women in Beijing.
School Festivals exhibiting the pictures Several schools had the visual exhibition of the land mine issue using many pictures from the FSUN at their school festivals. One of those were "The United Nations Club of Soka University" at Soka University, in Hachiouji, with its theme "Devil of Arms-Land Mines" showing some pictures offered by the FSUN and related VTRs. The first day of this school festival, the Chancellor Komuro and the FSUN Director of the Board Watanabe joined the opening ceremony. "We did not expect this much responses," said Miyata, the head of the U.N.Club, referring 2600 visitors during three days exhibition, "many people showed their emotion in front of the picture of a boy with only one leg, and that made us realize that the visitors had chance to rethink about respect for a life".
At Toyama Public High School
Mizuhashi High School, Toyama Prefecture, asked for donation for the Cambodians who lost their legs by land mines, during its school festival in Sep. 25. School children learned the fact about what land mines' did to people in Cambodia through TV broadcasting and came up with this idea of having their own project for people in Cambodia. The FSUN received the following letter from a student council, after the school festival,"Thank you very much for letting us use the pictures and documents on Cambodia. We are satisfied what we had accomplished during our festival. We successfully gathered donations by asking visitors and putting some donation boxes out and selling festival souvenirs. Even though we had a few problems in first day, we somehow managed to get good responses from the visitors. We had no knowledge about activities for artificial legs in Cambodia until we received information from the FSUN, and we've learned how lucky we are. We'd love to continue supporting this activity from the bottom of our hearts, and utilize our experience for an opportunity in the future. Thank you very much for everything and we will send our donation later day." Beautiful harmony in Yokohama The U.N. Singers, consist of U.N. staff, which was established to familiarize the UN to people all over the world, visited Yokohama last November, spent a few days with their host families arranged by YOKE and FSUN. They were welcomed by a mayor of Yokohama, Mr.Takahide next day, and visited Heian Public Elementary School to exchange music and have a lunch with school children. The U.N. singers joined the Joint Concert with a PTA chorus group and showed their beautiful and polished harmony with a lot of international flavors. Their harmony attracted the audience and helped to enhance new friendship between people in Yokohama and them.
About the FSUN 1998 General MeetingThe FSUN office has been active for planning and scheduling for coming 1998 General Meeting in Hawaii. The office announced that the tour would visit commemorative battle ship Arizona to show respect to American soldiers who lost their lives at the Pearl Harbor.Next day the 1998 General Meeting will be held at the Hilton Hotel with some guests from the UN to discuss future NGO activities. We will also have an opportunity to honor some individuals and corporations who have contribute the FSUN activities. There also is the WPC 3, Pacific Forum, Hawaiiimin Int'l Conference Center. With guests from several countries in the Pacific Islands, such as Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, Palau etc., environmental and industrial issues in this region will be discussed at this forum, and supporting this region on these issues will be a main activity of the FSUN in the future.
Boutros Ghali Award Committee held at the UNU
A joint meeting of the B.G.A. Committee and its steering committee was held at the UNU in Shibuya, Tokyo, on Oct.24th with an opening comment from steering committee chairperson, Mr.Kakizawa, and FSUN acting chairman Mr.Ichiro Watanabe. Mr.Watanabe reported the main reason to change the name of this award and its procedure with the United Nations ,and mentioned that a system of how to choose the five recipients from each of five continents stayed remain. A new award was named as "the UNU Global Contribution Award by FSUN". Besides the two chairperson from each committees, Ms. Kumiko Hashimoto, Ms. Sadako Hashimoto and Ms. Michiko Watanabe (all are members of the committee), and Mr. Abraham Besrat, Vice Rector, A.I. and Mr. Max Bond, Senior Council, Institutional and External Relationships Officer, from the United Nations University joined this meeting.(Written by Komiya)
Charity Activity by the FSUN Seiban office
With its slogan "Let's send the 2nd medical unit to Cambodia", the FSUN Seiban office held a charity meeting in Himeji, on Oct.11th. The meeting started with an opening comment by Office Director Mr. Makoto Ishikawa followed by welcome speech by a mayor of Himeji Mr. Kazuhiro Horikawa. Professor Sadakuni Takaya at Bukkyou Univ. also delivered precious lecture about "Issues of the Korean Peninsula". At the end of this meeting, the participants enjoyed music "Singing around the world" by Akira Kamijo, a former Takarazuka dancer.
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