January 2011

Directors of Steering Committee of Arms Down! Campaign in Japan Visit Rissho Kosei-kai

Rev. Ryoichi Fukata, director of the Youth Committee of the Japanese Committee of the World Conference of Religions for Peace as well as president of the youth department of the religious organization Ennokyo, visited Rissho Kosei-kai headquarters in Tokyo on January 27 to report on the results of the Arms Down! Campaign for Shared Security and confer with Rev. Yasutaka Watanabe, chair of the Board of Trustees of Rissho Kosei-kai, in the headquarters' administration building. Also present from Rissho Kosei-kai were Rev. Kinjiro Niwano, a consultant, and Rev. Masahiro Nemoto, director of the external affairs department; and from Religions for Peace Japan, its under-secretary-general, Rev. Tomokazu Hatakeyama, and two deputy directors of the Youth Committee: Rev. Doken Yasaka, director of the campaign's Japanese steering committee and director of the youth department of the religious organization Nakayama Shingon Shoshu, and Rev. Ignatius Keita Kobayashi, a friar of the Society of the Atonement.

The meeting began with Rev. Fukata thanking Rissho Kosei-kai for its young members' enthusiastic participation in the campaign. He recalled collecting signatures to the campaign's disarmament petition together with young Rissho Kosei-kai members, and said his and other Youth Committee members' collaboration with Rissho Kosei-kai and given them a wonderful and valuable learning experience. After that, Rev. Yasaka and Rev. Kobayashi reported on the steering committee's promotion of the campaign and the results of collaboration with member organizations of Religions for Peace Japan.

Rev. Watanabe thanked all the officers of the steering committee for their efforts to promote the campaign. He said young members had played a central role in the campaign and that when he gathered signatures with young Rissho Kosei-kai members, he was encouraged by their strong commitment. He said that peace efforts such as those of the Arms Down! Campaign for Shared Security have been made possible by the strengthening of the global network of religious youth following the Eighth World Assembly of the World Conference of Religions for Peace, held in 2006 in Kyoto.

The Arms Down! Campaign for Shared Security was organized by the Global Youth Network of Religions for Peace. Religious youth worldwide took part in it from November 2009 to October 2010. It was promoted in Japan from December 2009 to September 2010 by a steering committee formed by the special Arms Down Committee of the Youth Committee of Religions for Peace Japan.

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