From 28th March to 13th April, JOICFP provided training for counterparts of the "People's Participatory Poverty Reduction Model Project," entrusted by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). One provincial representative from Guizhou and one county representative from Daozhen participated.

The aim of the training was to share Japan's experience in community-based development and health care, as well as environmental protection and improvement of agricultural income, in order to support effective implementation of the model project in China.

In Tokyo, the counterparts learned from NGOs such as the Japan Family Planning Association on how such organizations had contributed to improvement of community health post-WWII as well as today's Japan in partnership with the government and experts in the health sector. They also learned from experts on peoples' participatory planning of community health and how to develop and utilize educational materials. Discussions were held with JOICFP experts on the integrated projects in China.

Field trip to Hiroshima

Like most farmers in Japan, those in mountainous Hiroshima face falling agricultural income and supplement their livelihood with other activities. Agriculture comprises several aspects, including food security and environmental protection, and the prefecture is making strong efforts to tackle its agricultural problems.

For example, Hiroshima prefecture is assisting farmers in forming cooperatives to increase effective use of labor and equipment, and agriculture is becoming more commercialized with farmers taking part in sales and marketing of products.

In northern Hiroshima, the visitors observed farming cooperatives' innovative farming activities and those of Ine-oasa to see how similar strategies could be implemented in Guizhou province, which is also mountainous like Hiroshima. Ine-oasa plants and produces rapeseed oil, and conducts resource recycling activities such as collecting used cooking oil and recycling it for fuel.

This machine operated by Ine-oasa converts used cooking oil into fuel

Health is also seen in Japan as being related to the environment, and improving the living environment has been seen as important to improving health conditions. Post-WWII Japan suffered low health indicators, and prefectures and the Japan Agricultural Cooperative (JA) in communities made great efforts to promote healthy living conditions through life improvement.

From the health sectors, the visitors learned how Japan's experience has been put into practice by the health administration in Hiroshima. They also observed school health activities as well as utilization of natural energy for water and electricity at Higashi Hiroshima Mitsujyo elementary school, and group vaccination activities for infants and children under three years old at the health center managed by Higashi Hiroshima municipal government.

Talking with a student at Mitsujo Elementary School

At the Hiroshima Environment and Health Association, a NGO that address community health from an environmental perspective, the counterparts learned activities of public health promoters who played a major role in a movement to eliminate mosquitoes and flies in communities in post-WWII Japan, and the current preventive health activities of the association.

Through sessions in Tokyo and Hiroshima, the visitors from Guizhou realized that, although their situation is different from that in present-day Japan, they can utilize Japan's experience by tailoring it to address the health and agricultural needs in China,and that what they will be able to achieve will depend on their own efforts. JOICFP is committed to supporting them in the coming years.