Comment of Screening Committee Members
Screening Committee for the SAKAI Peace Contribution Award Yoshio Kawashima
Mr. Jehan Perera, I would like to extend my hearty congratulations to you for your winning of the first SAKAI Peace Contribution Award. I really appreciate your noble and painstaking endeavors for the sake of peace building in Sri Lanka.
Also, I would like to congratulate today’s Encouragement Prize winners, Dr. Hideto Yoshioka of International Medical Association: Japan Heart, and Ms. Yasuko Yamashita of the Japan-Nepal Female Education Association. My most heartfelt congratulations to you both.
The nature and objectives of this year’s award recipients’ activities may be different, but what they plainly all share is a love for humankind, and what lies behind them all is a love for all human beings, regardless of nation or place. Furthermore, I have been struck time and again the award recipients’ selfless commitment to their work, in the pursuit of which they sometimes show a complete lack of regard for their own safety. There were a great many candidates for this year’s SAKAI Peace Contribution Award, all of whose activities are outstanding. Today’s recipients are the so-called “chosen few”, and it is my great hope that these awards can give you further encouragement in your respective activities.
My deepest congratulations to you all.