Evidence of Modern Endurance—The Asia Rural Institute (ARI)
Does the concept of “Endurance” continue to have meaning in a world of get-rich-quick schemes, instant messaging, and selfies? Are we born with a gene for endurance, or does it become a part of our nature as we confront extraordinary circumstances?
The phrase “working tirelessly” connotes nose-to-the-grindstone, an extreme dedication to achieving a task. Endurance, however, can energize those with a commitment to their goal―especially one that benefits others. The work of the Asian Rural Institute (ARI) in Japan whose motto: “That We May Live Together” is an example of a concept that requires commitment and endurance to be fulfilled.
Interdependence
Imagine standing on the observation deck of the tallest building in Shinjuku, where almost as far as you can see in any direction is Tokyo, the sprawling, largest city in Japan. What would happen to the millions who live in this conglomeration of packed-together villages if all transportation into the city was blocked? What would life be like after one or more days?
Quickly, people would get hungry; fear and panic might be rampant. Urban dwellers are dependent on those in outlying rural areas to grow food and get it to market. It is an often complex feat where middlemen—the link between growers and consumers—get a disproportionate share of the profits. This lopsided system is taken for granted by those who benefit most from it. The growers have little choice.
Enter the Asian Rural Institute (ARI)
ARI was established in 1973 by Toshihiro Takami who was born in Manchuria to a family from a fishing village on the Japan Sea; he returned to Japan when he was 10. At 12, he left for Kyoto to study Zen while living at a temple and attending public high school. At war’s end, he returned home where he bought fish each dawn, carried them by train to sell in Kyoto and Osaka, purchased clothing and other goods there and then returned to sell those items to help support the family and to buy more fish―repeating the cycle daily for three years.
The challenges faced by people continually working, struggling simply to survive, requires commitment and endurance. Toshihiro Takami reasoned that there had to be a better way to live and prosper, not just for himself, but for entire villages.
ARI is a training facility located some seventy miles from the site that later became the Fukushima Atomic Energy plant. Each April, about thirty experienced, strongly motivated, and deeply dedicated grass roots leaders: farmers, community organizers, agricultural extension workers, and religious leaders from villages in the Global South are selected by their sending bodies, with community approval, to participate in this unique training experience. Many expect a strong academic curriculum and are surprised to learn that the descriptors are “participants” and “staff” rather than “teachers” and “students.” Most visitors are shocked to find that the senior person cleaning the toilets in the main campus buildings every morning is the director of the institute, who noted:
At ARI we live and work together, producing food from the good earth to support ourselves. For we know by experience that unless we become self-supporting, in staple foodstuffs at least, it is practically impossible for us to gain selfhood or independence. We work extra hard to replenish our land by plowing in tons of organic matter to keep the living soil free from deadly pollution. We prepare our own meals and share and eat together with dignity, joy and peace, trying to create a more just and peaceful system of distributing food and other resources for all. We are especially concerned about the farming people who are not able to rightfully share in the fruits of their hard labor, for which they shed their flesh and blood.
ARI Graduate staffer, Peter Chandi, wrote:
One of the key concepts of ARI training is Learning by Doing. Real learning comes through actual practice in daily life. If we see, we remember. If we hear, we forget. If we do, we understand. Most of the learning at ARI is through active participation. When you learn by doing, you get the skill right inside you.
Life during the training program includes: shared community activities, kitchen management, individual summer projects, and rural community study tours. Individually these are threads, but woven together they are the fabric of a vigorous curriculum that aims at much more than just agricultural training. It aims at personal transformation of leaders who serve their rural communities. Beneath the practical elements of the program lie the deep-rooted philosophies of ARI such as servant leadership, the dignity of labor, and the value of rural life.
Endurance Starts Well Before ARI Training
Oscar, from Cameroon, explains some obstacles faced by rural farmers:
In our country there are no retailers. The only avenue for selling their crops is the weekly farmers’ market in town, which involves high transportation costs. Once in town they have to sell everything quickly, as they need cash to purchase cooking oil, kerosene, soap and other daily necessities. The middlemen, aware of the farmers’ desperation, offer a very low price. The farmers, by necessity, take what they are given―no matter how much time, labor, or money they have invested. Oscar’s sending body formed a cooperative that helps farmers get their food to market at lower transportation costs.
Theodora Tirbaban (‘06) is this year’s Training Assistant, someone with at least five years post-ARI experience at home. Her sending body provides health education for women bringing their children to infant welfare and antenatal clinics. Upon return from ARI, Theodora organized a seminar on bokashi (natural fertilizer) for the natural medicines part of the program for groups that had been raising pigs and chickens without knowing the importance of fowl and pig droppings. She created a demonstration garden of medicinal plants and herbal vegetables for the community. Such long-range thinking incorporates endurance and self-sufficiency into a community’s life for the well-being of present and future generations.
Congolese Jean Pierre (‘04) survived atrocities of war, lost family members, and fled his homeland, becoming a refugee. Before coming to ARI, he spent 8 years in a Ugandan refugee camp where he worked with ARI graduate Father Jose Marie Kizito in establishing the Cooperative for Refugees Family Development Agency (CRFDA). He explains:
Instead of depending on relief aid, this group devised a plan to involve the refugees in self-help projects that will lead them to be a self-sustaining in matters of human welfare including food security. This is the essence of human development, dignity, and self-esteem. CRFDA is different from many aid agencies that distribute maize and tomorrow the refugees are hungry again. Our aims are giving hoes and seeds…to dig and plant maize for ourselves that will be enough for today and tomorrow.
The influence of a small community committed to sharing principles of servant leadership, sustainability, and organic farming has shaped the lives of over 1100 graduates who have returned to their villages to influence, by their own example, current and future generations of once-marginalized people.
How ARI Endured a Tri-fold Disaster
On March 11, 2011, the tsunami/earthquake caused the Fukushima Daichi nuclear energy meltdown 70 miles away from ARI’s location. That event dramatically altered ARI’s land, buildings, and the entire training program of 2011. Some structures were destroyed, but amazingly, no one was harmed.
ARI’s methods of preserving and storing food meant that hunger did not add to the struggles in rebuilding the campus. ARI was able to quickly deliver rice, fresh vegetables, meat, and eggs to a group of Fukushima evacuees shortly after they reached a shelter.
Ecumenical Relations staffer Steven Cutting wrote,
When you shake the foundations, you find that which is truly strong, truly important will remain standing, while all other things fall away. What we found standing after the earthquake was our community….What we also found standing strong was our commitment to food self-sufficiency, as well as upholding our mission. ARI is here for one purpose; to train grass-roots leaders.
In September, 2013, the 40th anniversary of ARI’s founding attracted sixty graduates, many former volunteers and numerous supporters to a celebration of the enduring results of ARI training for rural leaders. Also celebrated was ARI’s unique, multicultural, multi-faith, hands-on educational experience designed to help rural servant leaders enable their communities to grow stronger and healthier while restoring and preserving the environment surrounding it.
Chomchuan Boonrahong, (‘88) from Thailand went on to manage an organization dedicated to promoting sustainable agriculture. From ARI and local farmers in Japan he learned about alternative markets and community supported agriculture. He learned that it was not enough to produce food organically, but that one has to go from production to marketing to working with the consumer because he could see how the rural and urban areas were interdependent.
All their dedication and the ability to endure hardships has meant that ARI graduates continue to teach poor communities how to free themselves from dependence on unjust systems that have kept them locked in poverty. ARI is the living proof that people of conscience, working together for the common good, can achieve real change.
