Discussion Meeting with Refugees in Japan
The First discussion meeting with refugee in Japan was held at the Shinjuku Bunka Center on November 15, 2020, as part of the ‘Tsudoi’ Festival for Refugees in Japan co-sponsored by the Foundation for the Welfare and Education of the Asian People (FWEAP) and Shinjuku Ward. This discussion meeting was held in response to requests from refugees for finding some occasion to exchange information with members of other refugee communities and to hold frank discussions with members of the Japanese government and private support organizations.
Implementation Report
We had to limit the number of participants to prevent COVID-19 infections. Yet, 19 participants were present in the meeting, including representatives of eight groups from the Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian, and Myanmar refugee communities. From Japanese side, seven people attended; four representing the FWEAP and Shinjuku Ward as organizers and three representatives of private support organizations. Also, Ms. Karen Farkas, Representative of UNHCR Japan, and officials from IOM, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Agency for Cultural Affairs, and Immigration Services Agency of Japan participated as observers by viewing the discussion on monitors installed in separate rooms. This is the first time such a meeting has been held in Japan.
At the discussion meeting, representatives of the Vietnamese Association in Japan (VAJ), the Lao Association in Japan, the Cambodian Community in Japan (CCJ), PEACE, and the Burmese Rohingya Association in Japan (BRAJ) as well as a third country resettled Myanmar refugee explained the situation of their actual lives. The subsequent free discussion session took up problems such as the serious impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their lives, the delayed education of refugee children, nursing care for aging refugees, the lack of graveyards, religious prohibitions on cremation, and passing down the cultures of their original countries to their children raised in Japan.
For more information on the meeting, refer to the related article in public relations magazine "Ai" Vol. 44, the booklet "Discussion Meeting with Refugees in Japan" and the YouTube videos.
At this discussion meeting, many refugees expressed their opinions frankly and positively. In particular, the problems of children's education, elderly nursing care, and the lack of graveyards are serious, and it has become clear that each refugee community faces similar problems. In this sense, the meeting was very meaningful in terms of considering future cooperation activities. The FWEAP will continue to hold such discussion meetings and persist to support settled refugees in improving their lives.
