We welcomed Shukuko Koyama, the Cabinet Office international peace cooperation researcher who has worked for disarmament and reconstruction assistance in the international organizations, as the lecturer of Global Career Course today.
The theme was “Reality of Work at International Organizations.”
“Weapons, soldiers, and natural disasters- Using these three keywords, I will talk about my experiences of working in the three different international organizations.” She began her lecture.
The beginning of the story was about the episode which was particularly impressive for her.
After leaving a graduate school, she was working on surveys at Cambodia, Mali, and Albania as the member in the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR). Then she encountered,
“Middle-aged ladies were dismantling rifles and ammunitions that had been left out at the military facility of Albania with bare hands, claiming that they are dangerous for children.”
Then, she talked about the moment when she was engaged in the work to send soldiers back to their home countries in Republic of Congo.
The very first thing which surprised her was the stench emanating from the body of two deserters. Both of them were kidnapped at an early age and since they were brought to force to become soldiers they had never took a bath, even once.
“When I met them, I thought cleaning the body is the human dignity. This action seemed like a ritual to keep the human dignity for me.”
Her stories at the harsh sites continue even further— an ex-soldier who lost all of his families and friends, women who organized 1,000 women soldiers after her family was killed and has been raped…
The students were overwhelmed by the shocking episodes but listened patiently to those realities.
The last story was about the experience of going to the Asia-Pacific Ocean region under a mission of natural disaster response at the International Labor Organization (ILO).
“The thing I felt at the site, were the strong hope by the victims that they want a job or business. This strength was the realistic feelings in those disaster-affected areas.”
Ms. Koyama created a project that is reflecting feelings of the local people into the polic, and had been working very hard to achieve it.
For long time in front of such realistic scenes, Ms. Koyama has made lots of contribution to the people in front of her eyes and has worked very actively under the belief of protecting human rights.
In her words, there was a deep love for people who are living under extreme conditions and a weight of experiences of caughting those feelings.
After the lecture, there were lots of comments from the students who received such a big stimulus from her; “Knowing the reality of the world made me to realize that Japan is truly a peaceful country.” “I want to contribute something for the sake of war and human rights issues.” “I want to work at United Nations. What should I do?”
Students strongly felt the appreciating of living in a peaceful country.
Their attention to war and human rights issues, gave them an opportunity to spread their view to the realistic world.
