Sarajean's notes

Everyone should check out the AERA interview with 2HJ's Charles McJilton. ( AERA , July 30, 2007, no. 34, p. 64). He is a such a charismatic person and it really comes through in the article. For those of you who don't know, Second Harvest Japan distributes food to soup kitchens, orphanages, the elderly, emergency shelters, single mothers, the homeless, migrant workers, and many others. Check out the 2HJ site for more info about they do : http://www.2hj.org/

Satoru (from JACO) and i have been talking about putting together a publication on advocacy for about one year now. We have finally been able to get several people together to do some group discussion on some of the key themes such as what is advocacy and why it is necessary. So much is taken for granted in the English word: 1. people can/should/have the right to speak out * 2. speaking out is not "anti" government * they represent us, they work for us, we pay thier salary, etc 3. people and citizen's groups can/should affect policy change * we should be monitoring government, wathc dogs are important, so too are is our input for social change policy development 4. policy affects us whether or not we realise it. * even small things like prioitising things like swimming or criteria for text books... cathc more later once things come together

The Tokyo Distance Learning Center has info for an international micro finance training program http://mftot.jointokyo.org/ Microfinance Distance Learning (MFDL) package developed by UNCDF is available online at http://www.uncdf.org/mfdl/ .

An interesting article from the NYTimes by Nori Onishi About the new jury system planned to be implemented in 2009 * interesting for anyone interested in democratic development and citizensﾕ involvement Japan Learns Dreaded Task of Jury Duty By NORIMITSU ONISHI Published: July 16, 2007 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/16/world/asia/16jury.html?_r=1&n=Top%2fNews%2fWorld%2fCountries%20and%20Territories%2fJapan&oref=slogin

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200707140073.html Kirill Konin was recently interviewed in the IHT/Asahi on July 14 - have a read about the Film Festival taking place here in Tokyo. For more information on the Refugee Film Festival, including film times and venues, visit www.refugeefilm.org >

I was told recently that I was " the most positive anti-establishment person X had ever met." I guess I could not be involved in this line of work if I did not believe that 1) we can make a difference and 2) there is a potential for real change. I get into a discussion that often goes negative - when my aim is to be positive! I see the fact that certain things many not be happening in a high profile manner - - Advocacy, individual donors increasing, corp. community programming etc.. to be an opportunity - a chance to do something new. No, this does not mean that things can be cut and pasted from other contexts from other countries. It does mean that we have many models from which to pick and choose and we can do new things by learning from others mistakes.

Today i am posting some on line readings for people at Tsuda's intenrational development skills course. I am teaching this course on TU nights. Since others might be interested in these i figured posting there here might be a good idea ... July 10 - focus on refugees and related issues Basic info on refugees - read any two http://hrw.org/doc/?t=refugees&document_limit=0,2 http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/~take-waya/main_refugee/japan.htm h ttp://www.unhcr.org/basics.html http://www.issj.org/english/Intercountry/ic18-2e.htm Refugees International http://www.refintl.org/ Refugees International Japan http://www.refugeesinternationaljapan.org/ July 17 - focus on Microfinance for poverty alleviation Basic info http://www.cgap.org/about/faq01.html http://www.waterberry.org/articles/Introduction%20to%20Microfinance.htm http://www.planetfinance.org/EN/microfinance-entreprise/microfinance-presentation.php www.ids.ac.uk/ids/pvty/pdf-files/SocialImpactMicrofinance.pdf http://www.grameenfoundatio...

on Saturday i completed my last training for the CGP nonprofit Fellowship. It has been fun and useful for me too to meet new people and share ideas in order to help them with thier fellwoships. Sad that this is the last Fellowship program. I think we could still use more study and intenraitonal collabroation support but i am not sure of the environment for this now. When JUCEE finished its 6th NPOP and 7 th IP programs it was sad but the numbers of people still communcating and working in the nonprofit sector here are quite large. The last time we talked about this was in 2005: http://www.socialedge.org/discussions/business-building/international-grassroots-collaboration/ FYI - don't bother looking atthe JUCEE website - it is a mish mash of old info. sadly JUCEE closed down in 2005.