Yomiuri Shimbun
Staff Writer
The 18th Yomiuri International Cooperation Prize has been awarded to Nippon International Cooperation for Community Development (NICCO).
NICCO is a Kyoto-based organization established 32 years ago by homemakers and students to support Cambodian refugees.
However, its activities attracted many other supporters by employing unusual training methods such as teaching farmers how to use human waste as fertilizer.
Kiyoshi Amemiya, president of Yamanashi Hitachi Construction Machinery Co., was awarded a special prize for creating a new style of international cooperation by corporations. His company built a machine to clear land mines by modifying conventional construction machinery.
===
The predecessor of NICCO was launched 32 years ago with fostering self-reliance as its philosophy.
After the Pol Pot regime collapsed in Cambodia in 1979, that country plunged into civil war, creating many refugees.
NICCO President Satoyo Ono, 71, was a volunteer helping foreign students in Kyoto at that time. She was told by a Cambodian student one day: "I can't contact my family. I want to help people in my home country."
Few international cooperation organizations existed in Japan at the time. Despite her lack of experience in this field, Ono called on homemakers and students to support the Cambodian people. They established the Kampuchean Refugee Relief Program in December 1979.
Ono collected donations on the street to help Cambodian refugees, and in March 1980, she visited a Cambodian refugee camp on the border of Thailand and Cambodia.
U.N. organizations and other international bodies provided enough food to keep the refugees alive. Ono feared the refugees would become accustomed to receiving international aid and lose the motivation to work once peace was restored in their country.
Ono encouraged the leader of the refugee camp to "gain pleasure through work" and launched a program to have refugees operate a poultry farm and make textiles and pottery. Ono's group provided materials needed for the program.
After the program moved into full gear, Ono asked the local people to repay the cost of materials supplied. The refugees became more industrious as their income rose.
After Ono's activities in Cambodia became well known, the group received requests from Southeast Asian nations, including Thailand and Laos, to help people there.
In 1988, Ono's group changed its name to NICCO.
NICCO participated in a project to deliver medicine to Iraq in 1991 during the Gulf War, and the organization's activities spread to other Middle East and African nations.
Staff Writer
The 18th Yomiuri International Cooperation Prize has been awarded to Nippon International Cooperation for Community Development (NICCO).
NICCO is a Kyoto-based organization established 32 years ago by homemakers and students to support Cambodian refugees.
However, its activities attracted many other supporters by employing unusual training methods such as teaching farmers how to use human waste as fertilizer.
Kiyoshi Amemiya, president of Yamanashi Hitachi Construction Machinery Co., was awarded a special prize for creating a new style of international cooperation by corporations. His company built a machine to clear land mines by modifying conventional construction machinery.
===
The predecessor of NICCO was launched 32 years ago with fostering self-reliance as its philosophy.
After the Pol Pot regime collapsed in Cambodia in 1979, that country plunged into civil war, creating many refugees.
NICCO President Satoyo Ono, 71, was a volunteer helping foreign students in Kyoto at that time. She was told by a Cambodian student one day: "I can't contact my family. I want to help people in my home country."
Few international cooperation organizations existed in Japan at the time. Despite her lack of experience in this field, Ono called on homemakers and students to support the Cambodian people. They established the Kampuchean Refugee Relief Program in December 1979.
Ono collected donations on the street to help Cambodian refugees, and in March 1980, she visited a Cambodian refugee camp on the border of Thailand and Cambodia.
U.N. organizations and other international bodies provided enough food to keep the refugees alive. Ono feared the refugees would become accustomed to receiving international aid and lose the motivation to work once peace was restored in their country.
Ono encouraged the leader of the refugee camp to "gain pleasure through work" and launched a program to have refugees operate a poultry farm and make textiles and pottery. Ono's group provided materials needed for the program.
After the program moved into full gear, Ono asked the local people to repay the cost of materials supplied. The refugees became more industrious as their income rose.
After Ono's activities in Cambodia became well known, the group received requests from Southeast Asian nations, including Thailand and Laos, to help people there.
In 1988, Ono's group changed its name to NICCO.
NICCO participated in a project to deliver medicine to Iraq in 1991 during the Gulf War, and the organization's activities spread to other Middle East and African nations.
No comments:
Post a Comment