The Award Recipient’s Address
Encouragement Prize: NGO Lala Association of Afghan Orphan SupportFounder – Ms. Mayumi Karako
Sakai City has offered an award of honor to LALA Association for Afghan Orphan Support. I truly appreciate the fact that this has been awarded to individuals and groups that have contributed to human rights protection and peace building.
We all share great pleasure in LALA Association receiving a peace contribution award. In particular, because the organization is merely a group of ordinary housewives with no particular expertise just doing what we can. However, this occasion has given us the opportunity to prove that even a small group of people like us can contribute to peace building on a world-class level if we work together.
We are grateful and pay our respects to Sakai City for its recognition of this attribute.
It has been nine years since Afghanistan received so much attention from the entire world. After we all saw the terrifying videos on TV of the terrorist’s attack on the World Trade Center buildings in New York and heard of the subsequent news of the U.S. attack back on Afghanistan, we all experienced an uneasy and strained situation as we wondered what would happen to the world.
We all woke up as if it had sharpened our mind. We are ordinary housewives, but we could not sit by and decided to take action. We strongly believed that there was something that we could do—even if it was only on a small scale. Luckily, women naturally possess the splendor of maternity and motherhood, which is very powerful.
Through the ages, wars and conflicts have inflicted the greatest pain on the weakest. The situation I saw on my first visit to Afghanistan in December 2002, was reminiscent of the 20s of the Showa Era in Japan. My instinct was that I simply had to help the local orphans who were unprotected without parents and forced to live in disastrous conditions. Even if I could only help one or two...
It’s been eight years since then. Not too long after I began to turn my instincts into activities and my friends and acquaintances started to join me. Having heard of the terrible situation, they too were compelled to help in any way they could. This is how our NGO, LALA Association for Afghan Orphan Support was set up. The movement was grown organically, continuously expanding its activities in orphan support in Afghanistan.
In the same way a stone thrown into the water creates a ripple effect, the quiet but solid activities of LALA Association have developed. In the end, an enormously large number of people gathered to extend their helping hands.
Among the participants, there was an anonymous person who just left us a donation with a message saying “This is what I have made over 40 years. I always wanted to donate this to those who experience hardships in life.” Coincidentally, that person was from Sakai City. Another one said “As I am raising my own children, I am not able to contribute on a financial level but there must be something I can do for you,” and took up a role in sewing bags for musical instruments to be donated to the orphans.
The activities of LALA Association have been made possible by the generosity of a great number of people. It is very impressive for me to see many passionate people in the community have been working together. I know clearly that this is something valuable.
One of the most visible achievements was a donation to the state government of Herat of a building for a new orphanage in which 250 orphaned boys can reside. We also donated curtains, beds and desks to a private orphanage and also built a dining hall and a bathroom for them. These have provided orphans with a secure and improved living environment where they can lead an everyday life cleanly and safely.
However, many of our important achievements are not physical. We have been making a great deal of efforts in establishing opportunities, such as picnics for the orphans to join, where we can mutually share the warmth of our hearts. We have also provided a toddler’s group, classes in English language and PC skills at orphanages.
We feel certain that the education of children is what will lift Afghanistan from its current situation by creating hope for a better world. Our only regret is the fact that, with our current capability, we are not able to directly get involved in educating the children.
In Afghanistan, we call those who have lost their fathers ‘orphans’—even if they still have their mothers—because the mothers are not economically independent.
Therefore, we also started activities to help disadvantaged women to establish financial independence so these ‘orphans’ can live with their mothers again. We opened the Women’s Handcraft Workshop where they can train in Afghan embroidery and Kilim weaving techniques. We then purchase the handicrafts they produce and ultimately, they are enabled to lead more stable lives. They now produce collars for kimono, scarves, carpets and wall hangings, which are all highly popular with women in Japan. We are seeing a connection form between the women of both countries despite the borders.
The unstable situation of Afghanistan is still not showing much progress and the new country-making is apparently becoming remote. Nevertheless, we keep up with our hopes. We acknowledge the importance of making individual efforts to strive through the difficulties and solve the problems. We wish to expand the rippling wave of continuous efforts that make slow but steady steps towards peace.
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” and “A single drop of water can become a mighty river” are sayings that exist also in the Muslim world.
So we join hands and put great effort into doing whatever we can. This is the value of LALA Association. It is not difficult because we are just following the natural maternal instincts to help those in need.
Finally, I would like to convey my gratitude to everyone from Sakai City and all of those in attendance for supporting LALA Association. Thank you very much for this prestigious award.