Participating the Afghanistan Study Group (Mar. 2023)

2023年4月5日更新

Cooking Bolani

We have been continuously participating in the Afghanistan Study Group organized by the Global Collaboration Center since the beginning of May 2022. About seven members with different affiliations who had a strong interest in the current situation in Afghanistan attended the group meeting. At the study group, there were lectures by an international student and a staff about the history, ethnicity, traditions, culture, and women’s situation in Afghanistan.

Following are some comments from the members who attended.

“She told us, through tears, many things that are not easy to know. I want to do something we can do following her thoughts and easy her feelings," "I recieved the information in a way different from the one through media like the Internet,"" Hearing the stories of local people is better than just watching the news," "Learning about the history of women in Afghanistan has broadened my perspective." I learned that there are people who seem to live a normal life but suffer from discrimination against the particular tribe."

First of all, I think it was a very valuable opportunity for us, Japanese students, to learn a lot from the words of these women who are living testimonies. After each study session, there was time for question-and-answer and discussion, and that experience helped us understand more.

In our presentation activities at the Kiin Festival (university festival in November), we focused on how to digest the dense content we had learned and to make it easy to understand for newcomers. The presentation included a demonstration of our actual preparation of "Bolani", a traditional Afghan dish, as well as a presentation on "What can we do? " We also showed a video of a discussion on the theme of "Approaches to Indifference" to make the topic more familiar to the audience.

Through this study session, I learned the importance of continuing to learn. Each one of us is a small force, but if we stop, it is meaningless and nothing will begin. It is difficult for us to continue thinking and acting alone, but I want to continue learning about Afghanistan with the friends I made this time.

（Maki YAMADA and Shiori YOSHIMURA, Freshman students, Department of Human and Social Sciences, Faculty of Letters and Education ）