Workshop of Poverty

*The connection between world poverty and us

In " the workshop of poverty and plenty" performed in the afternoon of the second day, we invited Mr.Noburu Yoshida ,who is a member of JETRO （Japan External Trade Organization, a Japanese trade promotion organization）Institute of Developing Economies, as a lecturer. He gave a lecture under the theme “Understanding poverty”.

As the lecture included parts about the developmental stage of the economy in history or stories of Japan in old times, it was quite different from lectures in high school history classes, and must have been interesting for the participants. We had been a little worried that it would be difficult for some, but each participant understood it in his or her own way, and it seemed to have been a time to think about various problems in our world.

Sharp questions were exchanged in the question and answer session. There were various opinions from overseas participants which reflected thoughts in their own country, and it was a very meaningful session

After that, we were divided into some groups and had time to talk about what each thought about and the things that we couldn’t understand.

Lively discussions were held in each group; there were opinions such as,” I noticed that I should review my life style" and "I decided to think more about this problem because I realized that I hadn’t before". Almost all of participants seemed to have become aware of the strong connection of the economy and our daily life. This connection was one of the things that the staff had been concerned about in planning the workshop.

Even after the WS had ended, there were many people who asked Mr.Yoshida questions or continued their discussions. The participants seemed to have become very interested in this topic.