Yesterday I went to an Amnesty meeting in Nagoya. The group here seems to be pretty active which is good! After the meeting and some letter writing we went to Sakae (a district of Nagoya) to show our support for Burmese people who were doing a hunger strike for 42 hours in an attempt to create awareness and call on the government of Japan to withdraw funding to Burma in hopes that it will change the current situation. There's been a lot of coverage on the Burma situation because a Japanese photographer was shot there a few days ago. I stayed at the hunger strike for about 2 hours trying to hand out pamphlets to people walking by but people in Japan are really hard to pamphlet. . .(I'm using that word in the verb sense). I think because people are always trying to give you stuff in japan so it's hard to determine what is actually meaningful handouts and what's just an advertisement for something. Also, there were a lot of young people in Sakae who apparently are the hardest to get to care about things happening outside of their own world. Quite the opposite to what I experienced canvassing in Canada. Anyways, we handed out pamphlets and were trying to get people to sign a petition and I left around 6pm after there was a candle lighting and prayer for change (maybe peace) in Burma. It was also to commemorate an event 4 years ago yesterday when in a similar way a number of buddhist monks, who were protesting, were beaten and killed by the government.
Next weekend is a long weekend for us too! :D I think Satoko and Yuriko are coming to visit me! And on Monday morning I'm thinking of going to an open house for AHI (asian health institute) with the Amnesty people. Apparently there will be a number of NGOs and people from all over the world getting training for NGO work. . .or maybe it's for different work. . .but anyways, it should be interesting :)
A bunch of other stuff happened this weekend too. . .and I have pictures!! I have to get ready for school now but hopefully I will post stuff later on today! ^^
Next weekend is a long weekend for us too! :D I think Satoko and Yuriko are coming to visit me! And on Monday morning I'm thinking of going to an open house for AHI (asian health institute) with the Amnesty people. Apparently there will be a number of NGOs and people from all over the world getting training for NGO work. . .or maybe it's for different work. . .but anyways, it should be interesting :)
A bunch of other stuff happened this weekend too. . .and I have pictures!! I have to get ready for school now but hopefully I will post stuff later on today! ^^
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