Yamanashi GPF Mobilization - Lunch party with friends

Yamanashi Preliminary GPF Orientation Report
August 17,2008

Special thanks to ate Jenjen who took initiative in organizing a kick-off to reach out Filipino friends in Yamanashi. FJMGP will always be there... Good luck to all our members there !

Reported By: Remia Martin-Watanabe
On Aug 17, 2008, a preliminary GPF orientation was held in Yamanashi hosted by Mrs. Josephine "Jen-jen" Eslopor Yamaguchi. Nora "Lala" Magpantay-Hasegawa and Remia Martin-Watanabe. FJMGP representatives were invited to introduce the Global Peace Festival content.

The day was actually the lunch party of Jen's group where the Filipinas together with their Japanese husbands and kids and one Filipino Nikkei jin couple (of Japanese descendants) joyfully welcomed us. The Lunch party was initiated by Jen herself. They are doing it 3 or 4 times a year. Jen thought that having this kind of activity will strengthen the bond of family relationship and pursue deeper brotherly hood.

She initiated a project that helped members support each other financially which turned out to be the main driving force in strengthening their communication and foremost trust to each other. She generously shared this project’s ideas to kanto area members to generate funds for our mini GPF activities. I really appreciate Jen's community work which is a sample for us to do something for the community in our own ,creating a new way of introducing our organization.

There were 22 people in attendance. As we present the FJMGP and GPF, everybody is so full of hope. They really appreciated it and determined that, "We will make a GPF here in Yamanashi too."

Since it is just a family-type gathering, with a limited time. A casual, friendly and just a simple presentation was enough. We did not use the projector nor the video. We collected the visual aids and make use of the New Youth Magazine (YFWP magazine), The Ideal Family Magazaine (WFWP magazine) and Lala's GPF Manual showing the Filipino VIP's particularly the presence of Pres Gloria M. Arroyo in the Philippine GPF activity.All of these to further understand what I am explaining about.

Im so happy that these magazines featured the organizations activities. Showing them the GPF in the Philippines and in Paraguay really amazed them. Of course, the aspect of GPF's service, intercultural and inter-racial activity especially the family was also a topic of their interest. But in all of these conversations I put more emphasis on the family. The participants agreed that global peace must come first from the family. The room seems in commotion for everybody wants to speak. One participants(he is working on the hospital as the head of food department) suggested that we advertise the GPF event in the Yamanashi newspaper. We encouraged them to invite VIPs especially the city mayor.

One Japanese husband has been so supportive said that he will try to invite the mayor of the city with the agreement that he will not be alone. He needs somebody with him for support. Even the Filipino Nikkei-jin hopefully wants to bring their clans and even planning to reach out the Brazilian nikkei-jin, too.

Everybody promised to bring more of their friends on the main event in Yamanashi on Sept 14. We cheerfully end up the gathering where everybody is so pleased, full of hope and determination.