This time, the lecturers for the Global Career Lecture Series were Mr. Hiroshige Fujii from the Secretariat of the International Peace Cooperation Headquarters, Cabinet Office (PKO). They talked about the PKO’s role in global society. The focus was on the themes of Poverty, Human rights and International Cooperation,
Mr Fujii, who specializes in international law, talked about the whole picture of the PKO. He usually studies in South Sudan, delivers lectures at universities, and gives training to Self-Defence Officials to be dispatched to a PKO.
At the beginning, pictures of the activities undertaken by the PKO in South Sudan were shown, and the students could understand the real situation there.
“Some people may consider working in the PKO to be a difficult thing, but there is one sentence to explain it, it is ‘to connect wills for peace,’ I think. I’m going to talk about that today,” said Mr. Fujii.
“How many areas do you think PKOs now operate in?” “Who decides the PKO’s activities?” asked Mr. Fujii. He then explained how the UN and PKOs conduct activities for peace, showing a lot of pictures to illustrate these activities. The students were focused on his speech taking notes.
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“This year, the UN turns 70 years old. It has conducted 71 PKOs all over the world. This figure means that, at least once a year, a conflict occurs somewhere in the world.” Mr. Fujii’s words made all the students think again about world peace.”
Then, talked about specific activities.
“The building teams are dispatched from Japan in order to develop facilities. We build hospitals, schools and companies, working together with a lot of the local people,” Mr. Abe explained about the wide range of activities undertaken by the PKO in South Sudan. Who knows the local condition, helped the students imagine what places they worked in and what people lived there, which the students could never learn from the news media.
What both Mr. Fujii emphasized was that a lot of countries, groups and people have relationships and act in cooperation.” The students could understand the true meaning of a PKO, which started in 1948 and keeps working for peace, and they realized that the members were working in South Sudan at that moment.
At the end of the lecture, Mr. Fujii said, “We quickly improve and build up the infrastructure of the area in which people have problems and are eager for peace while creating a safe environment. Then, we hand off the work to the government or other UN organizations. We take the will of such areas facing problems, and we pass them to the next level of groups. This is the role of a PKO.” The meaning of what Mr. Fujii said at the beginning “to connect wills for peace” became clear.
After the lecture, the lecturers asked the students to give a message to the members of the International Peace Cooperation Corps who work in South Sudan, and they wrote words into which they put a wish for peace.
aThe lecturers’ will to “realize a peaceful world” was certainly delivered into the hearts of the students who will become a foundation to change the world in the future.
