Chie Fuji, Part 3

"There are no worthless experiences"

Chie Fuji, center, stands with children of Rwanda at a refugee camp in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly, Zaire) in the fall of 1994.

Chie Fuji

Ms. Fuji was born in 1969. Her father is a company employee, her mother is a housewife, and she has an older sister and a younger brother. She worked her way through college, where she majored in chemistry. She became interested in the oil industry and began working at a finance company. Later, she changed jobs and joined an NGO called the Association for Aid and Relief. Her marriage brought her to Hiroshima and she pursued a graduate degree in international studies at Hiroshima City University. After giving birth to her son, she founded Peace Builders and now serves as its director. She lives with her husband and son.

In short, what brought me to this work is "curiosity." More directly, when I was in junior high, I wanted to know about the civil war that was taking place in Cambodia.

When I lived in Europe, I went to Poland and visited Auschwitz but I saw it as part of "the past." In Cambodia, though, the genocide was occurring right then.

I recall that, after I graduated from college, I felt ashamed of myself for thinking that way about Auschwitz and I felt strongly that I wanted to visit Cambodia. The most direct route to do this was to work for an NGO. At the time, though, I also had a rather poor reason for wanting to go there: it would be interesting to see a refugee camp, I had thought.

So I quit my job at the financial company after only a year. Working at the company had taught me a lot about living as an adult, but I felt the comfortable office in a modern skyscraper in central Tokyo just wasn't "my place." By chance, I was able to land a job at an NGO called the Association for Aid and Relief, Japan (AAR Japan).

As a staff member of AAR Japan, I coordinated a number of projects and conducted research in several countries, including Cambodia, Zambia, Tanzania, Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Angola. And I encountered Africa.

Before, I didn't have any special interest in Africa. I just went there for my work because I was sent by the organization. However, I noticed in Africa that there were a lot of things I had longed for in my childhood.

For example, the baobab trees in the book "The Little Prince." The 360-degree view of the horizon. Running giraffes. Millions of stars and the Southern Cross in the night sky. They were dreams of mine that I hadn't recalled in years. It all left such a deep impression on me.

I was dispatched as a coordinator to Africa. The job of a coordinator involved finding out what sort of support was needed in local areas and doing everything possible to deliver that support. I was engaged in such activities as: creating ties with supporters, governments, UN organizations, and aid organizations; drawing up documents like applications and reports; keeping up contact between the head office and our local office; managing the local staff, our supplies, and our security; and maintaining records and correspondence with regard to Japanese donors, which ranged from individuals to the government. For example, for a project to dig a well, only the actual digging is done by technical staff; the coordinator is in charge of everything else.

In providing support to refugee camps, "water" is always an important issue. AAR Japan was busy digging wells at that time. I had never dug a well before. However, I was a petro-chemistry major in college and I studied about petroleum refinement, so I had visited an oil rig. When I went to the site where a well was being dug, I realized that I knew how to operate the drill. At the beginning of the dig, the technical specialist had difficulty locating water, but we discussed the problem and we succeeded in making the well. I was able to make use of the knowledge I acquired from my university days in an unexpected way.

My university studies weren't related to international cooperation and I worked at a financial firm, but eventually I began working for an NGO. My life seemed to be "random and unplanned," but at the same time, I realized that there are no worthless experiences.