Greetings, everyone — thank you, as always, for your warm support!

One week has passed since we launched our Western Japan Study Tour crowdfunding campaign, "Living Kindly with Neighbors," and we have already surpassed ¥1.91 million in total support from 130 generous donors. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.

Today, August 9th, marks 81 years since the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

On August 6th, the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, we shared an update about Thomas Mathew, who graduated from ARI in 1988. Hearing testimonies in Hiroshima during his own Western Japan Study Tour changed the course of his life — he went on to bring hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) to India for the first time, produce a documentary on nuclear testing, and carry the baton of peace forward into the world.

(Read the full story here: https://syncable.biz/en/campaign/10070/report/14121#campaign-tabs)

At ARI's Opening Ceremony in 2023, the year we celebrated our 50th anniversary, Mr. Steven Leeper, former Chairman of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, joined us as a guest and left us with these words:

"I love ARI with all my heart. I have never seen a place like this — an organization of this size that has achieved such complete self-sufficiency simply doesn't exist elsewhere. We live today in a civilization of power, but the atomic bomb taught us that violence can no longer resolve our conflicts. Unless we graduate into a civilization of love, humanity has no future. ARI embodies that graduation — it is a model unlike any other in the world."

ARI advocates for a "peace from soil," beginning right where we stand. Practicing peace, each of us individually, is never an easy thing.

This campaign's theme is "Living Kindly with Neighbors." We believe that the only way to change the world is by changing ourselves.

When you first encounter ARI, it might feel like watching a vivid documentary in a movie theater. The diversity brought by participants from Asia and Africa, and volunteers and interns from places like the United States and Germany, along with the way our rural community leaders confront the world's social issues, all live and breathe, viscerally, within this community.

But I believe ARI's real strength lies in going beyond that. Whether you like it or not, it asks something of you — of your own self.

For our participants, learning changes who they are, changes the regions where they live, and that learning is passed on, changing their communities in turn. Twenty-two people standing at the very front line of the world's social challenges — sitting together at the same table, sharing a meal. That is ARI.

Once you see that, it is no longer someone else's story. It isn't a "kind world where someone else does something for you" — instead, it presses in on you with real urgency: for the world to change, you yourself must change.

When you change yourself to live kindly with your neighbors, the world changes. At ARI, the world comes pressing toward you. You are asked to change yourself, and it is asked of you as your own personal matter. It takes real energy.

For those of you who hear the stories of our Western Japan Study Tour participants and feel the challenges of distant countries as your own, we believe that giving is not simply a means of supporting us — it is also an opportunity for you, our supporters, to newly encounter the world yourselves.

We will continue our challenge toward the Next Goal of ¥2.2 million through September 30th (Wednesday). We are deeply grateful to be able to deliver this learning opportunity together with all of you.