Mr. Seiyu Koja President of the Peruvian Association of Okinawa
2019年12月12日
Seiyu Koja
Introduction
Hello my name is Seiyu Koja I am the president of the Peruvian Association of Okinawan.
Current Activities
Currently, the main activities that we are participating in are the Immigrants Day Exchange Event, as well as, every year for the past 14 years in Mid-July we hold a charity golf event to raise money for the education fees of Peruvian youths of Japanese descent.
This is something that has been undertaken through the total backing of the Kanehide Group. Every year we raise about 700,000 to 800,000 yen and send that money to Peru. The money is mainly used to pay for elementary school student’s school expenses. This year the charity golf event will be held on July 18th at the Kanehide-Kise Country Club. Currently about 280 people are scheduled to participate. Other than that, July 28th is Peru’s Independence Day. As such, every year we hold an Independence Day celebration. This year, it will be held at the JICA building on July 29th along with the International Exchange Festival held at JICA. There I will work at the booth for Peru, doing PR about Peru’s culture as well as it as its tourism. Additionally, after August, in cities all around Okinawa, the prefecture invites Research Students from countries all around the world to Okinawa to study, I am planning an exchange between the research students and their host municipalities.
That is the work I am currently involved in now.
Future Outlook
Now, outside of what I am doing for work; for the time being, I don’t think the scope of my work will not expand. However, I want to gradually plan more work with various international exchange groups.
A Message to the Youth
Because over 110 years ago the forefathers of Okinawa-prefecture set out to foreign lands hoping for a new place to live, currently around the glob there is upward of 400,000 people of Okinawan decent. For those of the younger generation too, to truly understand the meaning of international exchange and to expand their own view, I want them to little by little go abroad and challenge themselves.
