Congratulations! The first event of BAYT - Bringing Asian Youth Together was successfully held at UBC Point Grey Campus from 12:30 to 2:00 PM on November 24, 2006. The event started with the introduction of the original planning members (in the first photo - from right, Hyoshin, Zo, Vincent, Chinatsu, Wakiko, Arc, and Satoko). Absent that day was Ken, who created the BAYT logo.
Then we did a PowerPoint presentation on BAYT, from how it started, what we are going to do, general rules to our mission statement. In summary, the idea of bringing Asian youths together for friendship and und
erstanding started during a workshop on reconciliation in Northeast Asia at the Asia Regional Conference of the World Peace Forum, held on June 25th, 2006. Some participants of the workshop identified an opportunity for such a project in Vancouver where there are so many students from the region. The original planning members are students and staff members of UBC and Langara College from China, Korea, and Japan, and eventually we want to expand to the larger communities. The purpose of this first event was really to introduce the idea of BAYT, involve more people and get more ideas than what we already have - film screening, guest speakers, social events, etc. At the end we divided the participants into three small groups to get more ideas about what we can do. Stay tuned for upcoming events!The mission statement BAYT, still work in progress and open for suggestions is:
'The central idea of BAYT is to promote open and impartial dialogue among Asian youths, such as those from China, Korea and Japan. By exchanging opinions, leaning from each other and obtaining deeper knowledge, we will together broaden perspectives of the issues affecting East Asia and deepen understandings at grass-roots level. We believe this will bring harmony to the East Asia.'
We were so fortunate to have more than 20 people in attendance, so
me of whom volunteered to get involved as a planning member. Our upcoming events will be a year-end social activity, and some film-screening opportunities in the early 2007, such as 'Japan's Peace Constitution' directed by John Junkerman, and 'Annyong Sayonara' directed by Kim Tae-iI and Kumiko Kato. If you would like more information about BAYT, please email bringingasianyouthstogether@gmail.comThis project is going to grow and we will together bring harmonious future to Asia and to the world!
Satoko :)
Hi, dear Norimatsu Satoko-san and BAYT project members,
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your 1st event of BAYT!! I was so fascinated to learn about it!
I am Okumoto Kyoko who held a workshop on 25th June, 2006, at WPF together with Fujita-san and Nakano-san.
We had such a precious opportunity there and have been thinking and challenging the meanings of reconciliation and mutual understanding in the North-east Asia region.
Hope to keep in touch with you and create a peaceful network together in order to create a new era!!
Peace,
Kyoko