| Friends of the Orphans - Japan |
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| Japanese Participation. Japan is a leader in contributing overseas aid to developing countries. In the early 1990�s, its primary beneficiary was Indonesia; Japan gave Indonesia U.S. $1.1 billion in 1990, as much as it gave all of Africa. With the death of Emperor Hirohito in 1989, and the beginning of a new era in Japan known as the Heisei Era � �Peaceful Achievement� � Japan is unquestionably the economic and philanthropic leader in Asia, slowly working to erase the nightmarish memories of its occupation of most of Asia in the late 1930�s, including the occupation of Indonesia�s North Sulawesi. Japan is also becoming an international humanitarian leader. The director general of UNESCO, the Paris-based organization charged with building world peace through education and human exchanges, is Japanese. Japan, it should be noted, was the destination of more than 50% of Indonesia�s exports, the single largest foreign investor in Indonesia, and by far the most important donor of development assistance. We believe that both the Japanese government and non-governmental organizations will be enthusiastic about Orphans International projects ranging from the orphanages, academies, clinics, and eldercare facilities to the Japanese Gardens and teahouses. Japanese State and Local Governments. There will be Victorian Cottages built on our campuses in Indonesia, Haiti and Guyana named after the municipalities of Kyoto and Yokohama which could result in powerful municipal tie-ins. The Kyoto City International Foundation might take a specific interest in our project. Japanese Corporations. Japanese corporations with a multi-national presence in Indonesia include: Aiwa Indonesia, Bridgestone Tire Indonesia, Honda, Mitsubishi Buana Bank, Mitsubishi Krama Motors, National (Matsushita), Sanwa Indonesia Bank, Sanyo Industries Indonesia, Sharp Indonesia, Sony Electronics Indonesia, Toyota Astra Motors, and YKK Zipper Indonesia. Many of these have philanthropic divisors. The Sumitomo Bank Global Foundation, with a branch located in New York, awards scholarships to Asian citizens (including Indonesians) in financial need of higher education. Japanese Universities. International Christian University (ICU) in Tokyo in the source of potential strong support in the Japanese non-governmental sector, as are the two imperial universities, the Universities of Tokyo and Kyoto. ICU is an internationally oriented human services-dedicated liberal arts-based Asian university founded following World War II in firebombed Tokyo. The �Harvard and Yale� of Japan, Waseda and Keio Universities, are also expected to take a strong interest in Orphans International. Japanese Foundations. There is a multitude of Japanese foundations; many make international contributions, some that are substantial. The Inamori Foundation offers Japans� equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize: the Kyoto Prize, for �Creative Arts and Moral Sciences.� Perhaps this foundation may take an interest in the our Victorian Guest Cottages named after the city of Kyoto. Perhaps our Japanese Gardens and Teahouses could also find funding there. The reference work, Inside Japanese Support: Descriptive Profiles and Other Information on Japanese Corporate Giving and Foundation Programs, published in Rockville, MD by the SSHR Foundation, is particularly helpful. Ichiryu Kai, an organization located outside of Tokyo (Chiba), works to improve the quality of life of Southeast Asian and Japanese children. The organization seeks to improve the self-sufficiency of children through community living with assistance to maternal and child healthcare services. The Asian Children's Fund, located in Osaka, works to abolish child prostitution in Southeast Asia. Liberal Arts in Action. ICU, founded following World War II in the fire-bombed city of Tokyo, noted the urgency of the challenge to provide a liberal education in its recent fiftieth anniversary publication: �We face a great turning point in history today. Urgent and grave problems surround us, with a diversification of values, drastic changes in the international environment, the development of the information-based society and the global environmental crisis. In order to solve these problems, we must apply creative measures based on liberal thinking which transcends the existing boundaries of specialization. What is needed is not simply just book learning, but �Liberal Arts in Action,� to carve out the future of mankind.� This stands as a fine summary for the collective approach of Orphans International and our campuses planned in Indonesia, Haiti and Guyana, South America. �Education Mamas.� Our house-parents in Indonesia, Haiti and Guyana, male and female, will be expected to serve as what the Japanese refer to as �education mamas� to the children in their care, guiding � even cajoling � them to achieve in the same way that the kyoiku mama mothers of Japan work intensively with their own children from pre-kindergarten through graduation. The role of our houseparents in Indonesia, Haiti and Guyana will include keeping the children well fed, maintaining their school uniforms, encouraging them to do their homework and ensuring lively conversations around the dinner table each evening. �Returning Students.� In Japan, where �returned� students are known as gaikaishoji, many specific programs exist to deal with the particular challenges the students face. As a result of Japan�s enormous economic success in the 1980s, that country has had a growing trend of children returning from abroad and reentering its school system. These children, according to a professor at Kyoto University, �have characteristics which seem to be so different from those of other Japanese children that those in the receiving Japanese schools are perplexed.� Characteristics picked up by our Indonesian exchange students in America or Europe, on a program to begin summer 2002, will most likely include a high degree of individualism and the tradition of challenging authority; these traits seem to go against the grain of Asian culture, where in Japan they say, �The nail that sticks up get hammered down.� Our programs will be sensitive to such bicultural children. Health and Nutrition Projects for Pregnant Women. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Japan�s Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund have recently cofunded a health and nutrition project for pregnant women affected by Indonesia�s Krisis. The severe economic downturn has exacerbated not only a pregnant mother�s difficulty in obtaining proper nutrition and prenatal care, but also the inequities of the Indonesian household where, traditionally, women and children receive less food. Orphans International plans on making prenatal nutritional care available through its cafeteria to both campus and village residents. In addition, family planning services will be readily available and free of cost through our medical clinics to be built in Indonesia, Haiti and Guyana. Japanese Section of Libraries. There will be a Frances D. Alleman-Luce Library built in each country. Each library will proudly feature a Japanese section, in Japanese and local translation. These sections will contain volumes on Japan/Japanese-Americans, Japanese Arts & Crafts, Japanese Biography (Hirohito, Mishima, etc.), Japanese Culture/History (Benedict, Doi, Reischauer, Toland, etc.), Japanese Dance, Japanese Language, Japanese Literature (Kawabata, Kobo, Mishima, Murasaki, Oe, Tanizaki, etc.), and Japanese Music (koto, oomatsuri, etc.). We will approach publishers such as Kodansha, Tokyo Museum, Obansha, Tuttle, and Waseda University for contributions to these collections. Japanese Gardens. Initially, as the Yayasan Orphans International Indonesia will be built on the site of an existing clove plantation, all planned gardens will be clove stands. As funds are raised and the campuses develops, the gardens will be slowly transformed into formal gardens, most of which will have Asian themes. One of the more exotic features of each campus will be our Asian Gardens � Japanese, Chinese and Balinese. Each Japanese garden will feature a Shinto shrine. For over a millennium, Japanese gardeners have been creating beauty in small spaces � �limitless vistas within fixed boundaries.� Unlike the formal gardens of Europe, Japanese gardens are designed to mirror nature, particularly Japan�s rocky coastline and mountainous landscape. With moss-covered stones, native greenery and a liberal use of the ubiquitous bamboo, the stone lanterns will light the way to Sulawesi, Port-au-Prince and Georgetown�s only Japanese teahouses, built in the sukiyu style, which encourages the use of rough, simple materials, expressed to look natural. The teahouses will include sliding rice paper doors and windows (shoji), woven rice mats (tatami) and a traditional display alcove (tokonoma). Japanese �Peace Poles.� There will be a Peace Plaza, housing a Buddhist shrine, a Christian church, a Muslim mosque and a Hindu temple at each campus of Orphans International. Each Peace Plaza shall feature a �peace pole� created by the World Peace Prayer Society, a non-denominational religious organization founded in Japan after World War II. This pole is a hand-crafted monument that serves as a constant reminder to visualize and pray for world peace. The pole at Yayasan Orphans International Indonesia will be inscribed in the languages echoed by Sulawesi�s past and present: Indonesian, Dutch, Japanese and English. Our Peace Pole in Haiti will be in French, English, Spanish and Japanese, and in Guyana in English, Urdu, Hindi and Japanese. Peace poles may be found from Union Square in New York to Vatican Square in Rome, and have been erected by world leaders from Jimmy Carter to Mother Teresa. Appropriately, there is a peace pole planted at the United Nations. Each Peace Plaza pole states boldly: �May Peace Prevail on Earth� or �Sekai no heiwa [arimasho].� Peace, it must be noted, is more than the absence of violence. It is the absence of conflict: of poverty, sickness, and injustice. Peace is not achieved by stopping war, but by waging peace. We must actually work for peace; to actively combat hunger, disease, and injustice. Exercise Programs. Every morning each campus� Academy Square will fill with a pre-breakfast crowd of children and adults, for the Indonesian National Exercise Program � similar to Radio Taisho in Japan � known as Senam Pagi Indonesia. In Guyana and Haiti, this calisthenics program will also wake the body and be open to all visitors as well. Outdoor tai-chi will follow and should prove to be popular for older adults. In rain, both events will be held in either campuses� Larkin Athletic Center or Victorian Pavilion. Cleaning Programs. As in many parts of Japan, there will be a daily �Cleaning Brigade� from 7:00 - 7:30 am, in which all residents of our campuses, including staff and children, will clean their assigned areas. Guests and the elderly will be invited to participate as well. The daily Cleaning Brigades, in addition to contributing to the maintenance of the campuses, will likewise contribute to each program�s shared belief in the value of hard work. Japanese Corporations in Indonesia. There are many Japanese multinational companies operating in Indonesia that may be able to support Yayasan Orphans International Indonesia. Some of the largest include: � Japan Aiwa Indonesia Electronics [Tokyo] � Bridgestone Tire Indonesia Tires [Tokyo] � Honda Automotive [Tokyo] � Mitsubishi Buana Bank Finance [Tokyo] � Mitsubishi Krama Motors Automotive [Tokyo] � National (Matsushita) Electronics [Tokyo] � Sanwa Indonesia Bank Finance [Tokyo] � Sanyo Industries Indonesia Electronics [Tokyo] � Sharp Indonesia Electronics [Tokyo] � Sony Electronics Indonesia Electronics [Tokyo] � Toyota Astra Motors Automotive [Tokyo] � YKK Zipper Indonesia Household [Tokyo] Memorials In Memory of the Victims of Twentieth Century Massacres. There will be numerous memorials to local and world leaders. However, there will also be plaques commemorating not humanity�s greatness, but rather its capacity to embrace evil. In the words of George Santayana, �Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.� The plaque will commemorate the children killed in genocidal massacres of the last century: � Rape of Nanking, China � Hiroshima and Nagasaki � Auschwitz and Dachau � Annexation of East Timor � Cambodian Killing Fields � Yugoslavia and Kosovo � Rwanda and Uganda This plaque will state at the bottom the eternal prayer of Orphans International: May Peace Prevail on Earth. Indonesian Islands in Comparison to Japan. To better understand the 17,000 islands of Indonesia, it should be noted that four of the world�s 20 largest islands make up part of the Indonesian archipelago. Borneo ranks third, Sumatra sixth, Sulawesi � where Yayasan Orphans International Indonesia will be located � eleventh, and Indonesia�s most important island, Java, thirteenth. The island comprising England and Scotland, in comparison, ranks seventh, Honshu, the main island of Japan, ranks eighth. The Daruma - Sign of Good Luck. In Japan, a daruma has one eye painted to begin a project and the remaining eye painted upon completion. There will be a ceremony held in New York to launch the beginning of Yayasan Orphans International Indonesia to symbolize the international scope of our planned efforts. |
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| Home Construction Progress Sponsorship Opportunities Yayasan Orphans Int'l. Indonesia Orphans International Guyana Orphans International Haiti |
| Revised June 2, 2001 Copyright 2001 Orphans International America note: the background of this website is whitewashed cement block, typical of proposed Orphans International housing. |
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