順天中学校・高等学校

11/08/2014

The lecturers for the 7^th workshop have already had experience working in the Philippines and they are continuing actively working in the Philippines.  Their talks showed us what paths there are for the students to do volunteer work in the Philippines.   

The first guest a documentary film director, Mr.Imaizumi.  Mr.Imaizu has been making documentary films in the Philippines and actively helping local people.  Prior to the workshop, students watched one of Mr.Imaizumi’s film that is about the devastation that a super typhoon Yolanda brought to Leyte Island on November 8, 2013, exactly one year ago from today.   Mr.Imaizumi talked about his past experience in the Philippines and how he came about to make the film about Yolanda.  During the talk, Mr.Imaizumi addressed the questions from the Junten students.  The documentary film is about what happened to the coasts where Yolanda mainly hit, coincidently the area is exactly where the General MacArthur returned after the US army had withdrew once in the World War II.    Mr.Imaizumi told students that when working with the people in the Philippines, the pains of Filipinos that were cased by the Japanese military actions are something that the students should acknowledge and remember.   Mr.Imaizumi added that it is not a well-known fact but there are Japanese-Filipinos who are descendants of Japanese who had lived in the Philippines since before the WWII.  Students should remember about their hard life and struggles when working for the people in the Philippines.

The second speaker was Mr.Chiba who is a graduate of Tokyo University of Foreign  Studies.  Mr.Chiba didn’t speak Japanese when he came to Japan.  After studying Japanese for one year, he joined Junten Senior High School.   Mr.Chiba had participated in various international activities at Junten and had made great efforts in school work and successfully graduated Junten and proceeded to a university.   Mr.Chiba encouraged students to know more about the Philippines and the Filippinos living in Japan.

The third speaker was Mr.Olivia Akatsu.  Mr.Akatsu has worked for a number of years with the Philippine Embassy to help the Filipino people living in Japan.   Ms.Akatsu has lived in Japan for over 20 years and has worked to support the Filipino community in Japan.  The majority of the GLAP 1 students will stay in Japan to work on the SGH projects, so Ms.Akatsu’s talk was very encouraging and helpful for them.

Reference: “Abong/Small House”, Directed by Koji Imaizumi