Among APFS’s objectives, it is an important one that not only Japanese support foreign residents one-sidely, but we organize our activities based on mutual assistance among each other. To be able to realize this goal, this year we received subsidies from the Tokyo Voluntary Action Center and started the above mentioned training.
Following “Psychology” (1st time) and “Law” (2nd time), on the national holiday of October 12th we held the ‘’Workshop for knowing others and ourselves” as the 3rd occasion, and were able to welcome altogether more than 20 participants consisting of not only foreign volunteers but directly concerned members as well. Through activities such as “Fruit basket” (getting to know to each other), “Portrait” (drawing without looking at the paper and “Introducing the partner” (acting as if we were the other person), even people who had been only on a greeting-basis were able to loosen up and “know the other”.
In the “Introducing the partner” part the following question was also included: “The message I would like to share with the other the most”. Most participants expressed their intention that “I want to fight for visa with all of you”. Since we noticed that they strongly fear situations when they are being criticized at the Immigration Bureau, we decided to have a “role play” resembling the actual situation. However, thanks to the enthusiastic performance of a foreign volunteer who formerly faced the same problems, we believe that serious advice has been given concerning how to face such atrocities. Even people who previously could not help but only shed tears seemed to pick up something themselves, stating that “It was very useful”. Altogether, an environment in which we can learn from each other started to form. We are looking forward the additional achievements of the upcoming two training occasions.
