Suwako Nagata, Part 3

Returning to nature

Suwako Nagata with Joy, the three-year-old girl in her host family.

Suwako Nagata

Born in Nagasaki in 1951. After graduating from the department of education at Nagasaki University, she worked as an English teacher at junior high schools in the city of Kobe for 35 years. While working as a teacher, Ms. Nagata was a member of the Japan Education and Resource Network (JEARN), an NPO that promotes international education. In 2003, the International Education and Resource Network (iEARN), the parent organization of JEARN, organized a conference which led to the founding of the 窶廣MANI Internet Centre窶・in Kaimosi, Kenya in March 2010. Ms. Nagata then retired from teaching and has taught Japanese in Kenya since September 2010.

This summer, because of the concerns about electricity caused by the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake, conserving energy has become an important issue. We are also facing the problem of exhausting fossil fuels, so the development and use of clean energy are drawing attention.

When I was a school teacher, I addressed the issue of energy and I developed my own 窶廢ducation for Sustainable Development窶・(ESD). At the same time, I have taken a look at my life to see how I can improve my use of energy.

Japanese society pursues a life of convenience, and toward this end, people have pushed the idea of mechanization. One of the most remarkable examples of this is a toilet seat that warms and washes the user. Do we really need to consume so much electricity and water in this way?

Since coming to Kenya, I have felt the bracing natural breezes of the morning and evening. During the day, I can boil water and cook with a 窶徭olar cooker窶・which makes use of direct sunshine. I can fill a black washtub with water, warm it up under the sun, and use the warm water to take a bath. Even when there's a power outage, we can enjoy a dinner by lamplight, one of the fruits of living a slow life.

We grow a variety of vegetables, such as corn, a staple food in Kenya; tomatoes, which are needed for soup; and cucumbers and Japanese radishes. Almost all the vegetables we eat come from our garden. There's nothing better than a meal that includes fresh vegetables.

It's true, however, that because of the impact of chemical fertilizers in the cultivation of tea and eucalyptus, which is a non-native species, the soil is turning acidic. Tea leaves can grow in acidic soil, but it isn't good for vegetables. One way we address this is by making compost. By layering such things as cow dung, weeds, and banana stalks, good compost can be produced in a few months. Compost can also be made from kitchen garbage.

The NEGAI International Education Center, where I work as the director, has organized several workshops to teach farmers how to make compost. One of the participants, a young farmer, carried out the ideas from a workshop and grew a big crop of tomatoes. He has also begun a new endeavor, planting kale and selling it to cover the cost of high school lunches.

The best vegetable for growing in the soil, enriched with compost, is the Japanese radish. Although the Japanese radish isn't familiar to people in Kenya, we, along with this young farmer, are trying to establish distribution channels for this vegetable so that people from India, now living in Kenya, will have business opportunities to pursue.

All this work is hard, but I think providing support to others to improve their lives is a gratifying thing--it feels as if I'm following the call of the third verse of the song 窶廾ur Wish.窶・/p>

Currently, our center doesn't receive support from any other organizations. Still, we do what we can to assist the people of Kenya by sharing our know-how and working together. That's enough to encourage them to work hard and broaden their dreams. If we simply offered large amounts of money, the people would come to depend on that money and then press us for more.

As a consequence of pursuing a life of convenience and comfort, human beings have created a critical situation in which the earth is full of waste and suffering from global warming. In order to hand down a clean planet to future generations, we have to do everything we can. One thing we have to do, I think, is take a hard look at the way we live and return to nature to live a more natural lifestyle.

Compared to Japan, Kenya might be an inconvenient place, but we can live an eco-friendly life with others and with nature. At the same time, it's possible to improve the lives that the people of Kenya lead. When we look at the world, the challenges seem so complex, but the way forward is simple: Think Globally and Act Locally. This is one path toward sustainable development.