Your moderator has been remiss in not
giving fuller summaries of some of the very interesting talks we have had
recently at regular meetings.
In May we had Jane Best who is
director of Refugees International Japan. Founded in 1995 by expats RIJ
surprisingly is not part of a large network but works alone, although the
founder on returning to the states has set up a RI lobbying NPO in Washington
DC to promote awareness of refugee issues.
Jane has been involved with RIJ since 2002 and became the director (a
tiny office) a few years ago. She has been a long term resident of Japan going
way back to friendship (through the restaurant she owned for years) with our
Fellowship's founder, Ken Woodroofe.
Jane gave a brief overview of the
horrendous refugee problems we face today noting that over 80% of refugees (let
alone IDP's) are in developing NOT richer nations.
She pointed out that one of the
best solutions to many problems (from adequate food and housing to preventing
despair) is to let refugees work in their new communities. Mostly
this does not happen.
RIJ recently has focused on 5 main
projects (three along the Thai/Burma border) which she discussed and showed
slides about. RIJ's programs are small but have made tremendous differences in
peoples lives. Well managed, truly most
of the donated funds to RIJ (according to the figures she showed) are going to
the people in need (not administration). All are different but all are
fulfilling requests by the people involved-- not ideas imposed from above.
RIJ is in need of donations and
introductions to possible corporate sponsors.
Our June speaker was Vivek Pinto,
whose correct title is research fellow at the Institute of Asian Cultures,
International Christian University. He has spoken to the fellowship several
times in recent years. This includes
in January 2017, on the interesting
British educator and student of Indian religion, William Winstanley Pearson,
who in the early years of the 20th c became Tagore's secretary and translator.
June's talk focused on the
influence of Thoreau on the early thinking of Gandhi.
