10 Questions with Kaya - How can we advance peace building through communication?
The Communication Coordinators and volunteer English and Spanish language teachers onboard Peace Boat in Latin America in 2019.
I interviewed the current volunteer of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Ms. Kaya Nagayo, to understand how her experience as a communication professional working with projects from over 20 countries with NGOs, intergovernmental organisations, and the private sector entities have shaped her perspective for global peace building. She discusses some of her self-reflections, motivations, and what advice she can give to youths today.
Use with permission of Kaya Nagayo
Hello Kaya! It’s been a while since we spoke and thank you for accepting this week’s interview! To start, could you share with our readers a little bit about who you are, and the kind of work you do now?
Hi Phoebe! Thank you so much for having me here today. As a bicultural person growing up in Japan and Canada, I was always interested in how people from different cultures view the world.
I remember sitting in primary school in Japan learning about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The textbooks emphasized the horrors of the atomic bomb and the sufferings of the Hibakusha (atomic bomb victims). Then again, I recall the days I spent in history class at a Canadian high school, where the curriculum stressed the usefulness of the atomic bombs in bringing about a speedy end to World War II, thereby saving millions of American lives.
Back then, I was confused by these two drastically different interpretations of the same event. The answer to my question came when I boarded NGO Peace Boat as a Communication Coordinator in 2018 and circumnavigated the globe twice. Onboard the ship, I learned about the atrocities that the Japanese army had committed in South East Asia during World War II. I also met many Hibakushas and heard first-hand the pain experienced by those exposed to the atomic bombs. The answer was simple: both stories were true. Japan was both an aggressor and a victim during the war and so were the other Great Powers. Through this realization, I concluded that one way to meaningfully engage in international cooperation is to try to understand the multiple stories no matter how conflicting they may be.
With this in mind, I have since worked as an SDG Advocacy Consultant at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), as a professional educator at TCK Workshop, which is an online prep school for Japanese children living overseas, and I am currently in training to join JICA’s (Japan International Cooperation Agency) JOCV (Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers) programme, which is the Japanese version of the US Peace Corps, for two years in Uzbekistan.
What inspired you to pursue this career path?
My goal is to connect international cooperation and education. In an increasingly globalized world, the next generation needs to be equipped with a diverse worldview so that they can cooperate with peers around the world.
During my time on Peace Boat, I was fortunate to be part of the Hibakusha Project. Since 2008, this project has invited over 170 Hibakushas from Hiroshima and Nagasaki to give testimonies in countries all over the globe. I have interpreted Hibakusha testimonies to local authorities in the Republic of Cyprus, to students at the National University of Mongolia, and to youths at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
The Hibakusha Project taught me something very important: no matter where we come from and no matter who we are, individual accounts will always move the hearts of people. With this thought, I decided to become a storyteller, one who tells stories to educate youths.
Interpreting the testimony of Hibakushas as part of the “Hibakusha Project” in the Republic of Cyprus, 2019.
This took me to my next step, which was to coach Japanese children and teens living outside Japan as a professional educator at TCK Workshop. My main job was to work with youths on TOEFL iBT, SAT, IELTS, IB English, Eiken, and other English-language exams to better prepare them for test day. In between our test-focused sessions, we also had discussions about peace. One of my students, who was twelve years old, said, “My great-grandmother started to tremble when I asked her about World War II. Judging from her horrified expression, I understood the war had been a hard time for her. I think that we children should listen to the testimonies of people who have experienced war so that we can create a more peaceful world. However, the people who experienced World War II are passing away. Our generation will be the last to be able to hear the voices of the survivors of that war.”
She is absolutely correct. My next project is to connect the young generation and the last survivors of World War II so that the leaders of tomorrow will have been able to listen to the real accounts of that traumatic historical conflict. As a JICA volunteer in Uzbekistan, I plan to bring the voices of the Hibakusha to Uzbek youths by connecting them virtually. Many young people know Japan because of anime and manga. For my part, I want them to also know about the dark side of Japanese history.
How did your experiences managing communications with international organizations affected you to become the person you are today?
By working with peace-builders and educators at Peace Boat and TCK Workshop, I was able to discover various initiatives launched by young leaders today. I was inspired by them to pursue my own journey of self-discovery. Conversing with over 100 young people over the Internet as an educator, I came to know their potential.
What I learned from them was that spotting similarities amidst our differences, we can always succeed in connecting them. Now, my motto is “connect, create, and co-create”.
Visiting the Republic of Cyprus with Peace Boat’s “Hibakusha Project” in 2019 to testify about the horrors of the atomic bomb in front of local authorities.
“Connect, create, and co-create.”
Are there any personality traits or habits you think every leader ought to have?
Every leader should have the ability to view things from the perspective of the people s/he is leading. A good leader is someone who doesn’t “lead” but who “facilitates”. S/he makes sure that everyone involved is comfortable and expressing themselves freely. S/he respects the people s/he works with.
This leadership skill applies to politicians, teachers, and anyone who is organizing a group of people. Power play is always present in society. When we are in a leadership position, we must always seek to see things from the participants’ point of view.
Whose career inspires you, and why? Who do you admire?
Two people inspire me. One is an individual and the other is a whole population. The first person is my grandmother, Tamie Kanemaru, who passed away in 2020. She was 100 years old. When she was young, she narrowly escaped bullets showered on her by an American fighter plane during World War II. She worked as a teacher and director at a nursery school all her life and was one of the most hardworking people I know. The second is the children around the world who do not have access to adequate water, food, and shelter. When I visited Madagascar on Peace Boat, I saw children there who were thirsty, hungry, and couldn’t go to school. I realized that they must have an immense amount of strength in order to survive. There are still many children on this planet who do not have access to basic needs. They are the heroes we must support.
What are some of the major challenges you face at your work? And what keeps you motivated to solve them instead of quitting?
People have different ideas about what is acceptable. What is normal in one organization may not be the case in another. The schools I went to in Japan and Canada and the universities I studied at in Japan, Russia, and the UK were all dissimilar. Navigating these differences was one challenge that I have had to face. However, instead of comparing or evaluating differences, it is more productive to take what one likes from various places and merge them into one. Everyone is amazing in their own way. My aim is to learn from the wonderful people I encounter, make them my role models, and incorporate their best into my next project.
If you were to start all over again, would you have done anything differently?
No. I would do things exactly as I have done them. This is because even if I were to go back in time, I would probably do everything just as I have done them. What I want to change is not the past but the future. I want to be a better person and a more enlightened activist.
If you weren’t working as an English Japanese interpreter, what other things would you be doing?
Several years ago, I was working as an English Japanese interpreter, and right now my job is English-language teaching. If I weren’t an interpreter or a teacher, I would be an artist. I love painting and wish I had more time to do it fulltime! I also want to study linguistics, so an MA in Linguistics is definitely on my bucket list!
Kaya travelling the world with Peace Boat in 2019.
What advice do you have for youths who also aspires to be in communications, and to go on the path of peacebuilding?
Two pieces of advice. First, we never get up unless we fall down. We have our ups and downs. Accepting both our successes and our failures makes us stronger. Second, never shy away from big problems that need solving. Connecting our personal thoughts to huge tasks, that is, finding the link between us and the world, takes us one step closer to finding a project that serves both our passion and society.
What’s next for Kaya?
For the next two years I will be in Uzbekistan as part of JICA. I will be teaching English and Japanese to local youths. On top of language education, I will launch virtual events between Uzbek youths and Japanese Hibakusha from the Hibakusha Project. I want Uzbek youths to know about the horrors of the atomic bomb and I’d like to discuss with them how we can create a nuclear-free world. The United Nations’ Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) came into force in 2021. My project will centre on raising awareness around this issue among young people in Uzbekistan.
After JICA, I hope to travel the world with WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) to learn about grass-roots sustainability movements. Working as an English-language educator at Shanti Bhavan, a non-profit school for poor children in India, is also on my to-do list. In the long term, my dream is to combine international cooperation, education, and sustainability to be an activist-educator who works with youths to come up with creative solutions.