Happy New Year 2010! /PNWJ 2009 Event Report
Spring Love Harukaze / April 2009
Peace Not War Japan would like to extend our very best heartfelt wishes for the New Year to all of our supporters.
As we are all aware, 2009 was a difficult year around the globe for many reasons. Ongoing war and violence have continued to cause suffering for many, while also exacerbating related problems such as poverty, hunger and a worsening climate. The situations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza are several examples that deserve our attention in particular, although certainly not the only ones.
Despite these problems, however, citizens the world over have continued to do their part to help create a better world through heartfelt action taken at the grassroots level. Peace Not War Japan was thrilled to be a small part of this global wave of peace and justice during 2009, through events combining live music performance with peace-related discussions. The highlight of our activities for the year occurred in early April, when we teamed up with seasoned event planners from the renowned "Harukaze" dance parties to put together "Harukaze: Spring Love." With the sakura blossoms in full bloom, Tokyo's Yoyogi Park was transformed that weekend into a space filled with incredible live music, thought-provoking presentations on peace issues, and amazing positive energy.
This was followed by an inspiring live music and talk event to commemorate the visit of the World March for Peace and Nonviolence participants to Tokyo in October, the PNWJ Peace Film and Live Music Festival held in Kunitachi, Tokyo in early November, and a slot to promote our activities at the Parties 4 Peace Earth Groove event in December. In addition, Peace Not War Japan was featured in an article from Metropolis magazine in August, which may be read here.
We were pleased, through these efforts, to provide modest donations to the following grassroots-level peace organizations and individuals:
Spring Love Harukaze:
PNWJ Peace Film and Live Music Festival in Kunitachi:
Kenju-no-kai (eco-action group working to save Mt. Takao from construction)
Collateral Repair Project (joint U.S.-Iraqi citizen project to support Iraqi refugees)
Yuntaku Takae: Save the Broccoli Forest: No Helipads in Takae, Okinawa!
For further details on these events and the organizations supported, please visit the earlier reports from our newsblog. We apologize that this resource was unavailable throughout most of 2009 due to technical problems, but we are pleased that everything is fully functional now, and that all past 2009 event reports have been posted. We would also like to thank the Kyoto-Journal affiliated blog Ten Thousand Things for hosting our reports for us while our newsblog was unavailable, as well as PNWJ Founder Dom Pates for helping us get this resource back online!
We are looking forward to more positive action in 2010, beginning with the second "Harukaze: Spring Love" , scheduled for April 3rd-4th. This year's event will focus on the connections between peace and environmentally sustainable movements such as local organic farming, among other issues. We will update this site as soon as details have been finalized.
We invite you to join us to support our efforts in 2010, and to spread the word amongst your friends. If you are interested in volunteering your time and talents to help us plan events, please also get in touch with us at info@pnwj.org. It is your continued support that allows us to do what we do!
We wish each one of you all of the very best, and we thank you for joining us in helping to create a world that emphasizes the values of compassion, trust, equality, and connection across differences in order to help attain true peace and justice.
With hope and thanks,
The PNWJ Organizing Team
(Hiroshi Fukui, Kimberly Hughes, Miho Yazawa)
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