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A person who can be welcomed
"From 18 to adulthood."
I was watching the morning news and saw such a feature.
The age of adulthood, which has been set at 20 for 140 years since the Meiji era, will be lowered to 18 on April 1, 2022, according to a revision of the Civil Code.
High school students interviewed on the street corner expressed their confusion and anxiety, but what the feature dealt with was how to prevent new 18-year-olds from becoming involved in crime.
Since they will be able to get credit cards and sign various contracts without parental consent, the number of cases of being cheated or scammed will increase. In preparation for this, high school classes have already incorporated countermeasures against malicious tactics and cooling-off procedures.
What does it mean to be an adult, to become an adult?
What will the surrounding society be prepared to do for that?
On the same day, I saw an article on FB that I had posted in the past called "Memories from 10 years ago. Sometimes FB posts such things on its own, and I rarely look at them, but that day I happened to take a peek.
There was a photo of Yuumi on the day she was graduating from junior college and also a comment.
Today is Yuumi's Junior College Graduation Ceremony She has spent the last two years learning and living in community. She has worked part-time at "Mother's Bento," dropped by Suzuka Culture Station on her way home from college to study and doze off, been treated to meals at various homes of Hiroko, Teruko, and Yoshiko, and had her hair done today by Junna from a hair salon in community and her kimono dressed by Hiroko from a tea ceremony class.
From April, she will start working as a nutritionist and prepare meals for children. She lives a few kilometers away, but I hope to continue to watch over her in the community.
Ten years have passed since then.
Yuumi will soon be a mother of four children.
She now plays a role in Cherish, a place where infants and toddlers in the community can grow and learn.
Not only that, she also organizes various meetings and acts as a big sister to the young people, and just by having Yuumi there, the conversation spreads in a harmonious atmosphere.
It was four years ago, in April 2018, that the [ScienZ Academy] began in the Suzuka community, opening its doors to young men and women between the ages of 18 and 40.
However, as a preparatory period, or rather as a preliminary step, we had prepared a place called "ScienZ Study Abroad" for a little less than 3 years. The program started on July 4, 2015 with two youth from Korea and Japan, and a total of about 50 people gathered to experience the community.
Yuumi came to the community as a young adult about five years before the "ScienZ Study Abroad" program began.
Diego, a young man from Brazil, arrived in February 2017.
He studied as a ScienZ Study Abroad student for one year and two months, and then as an Academy student for three years.
He will return to Brazil the day after tomorrow, March 31, for the first time in five years. To the Brazilian community that sent him back.
Scienz Academy" - Nurturing the next generation of society's creators.
He spoke only a few words of Japanese, and tried to stand tall so that people around him wouldn't think he was an idiot. His five years in the bento shop began when he criticized the work as a drifter, which is just like Chaplin's "Modern Times" and not a job for a human being.
I had a farewell dinner with him last night, and I got the impression that we have become closer, that he is loved by everyone around us, and that we have become easy partners who have nothing to resist each other.
I wonder what kind of steps he will take in Brazil.
Last fall and winter, four new members joined the Academy, Kohei, Shizuka, Rie, and Azusa, the long-awaited Jung-in joined us from Korea with the lifting of travel restrictions, and this March, Naoe and Ayako will be leaving.
People who listen to what I have to do and what I want to do and respond to it.
Even when things in my mind seem hard and heavy, they don't try to crush or break them.
Softness that accepts the whole as it is I can smoothly enter into that person.
Before I know it, I and other people melt away.
The feeling of melting deeply into a wider range of people through that person The peace of mind that comes from being part of something bigger.
At the presentation of their departure, they both conveyed the sense that they have been living in peace of mind, embraced by a large bosom for a long time. I felt that there were people here and there, including community parents, who truly listened to and accepted the women as a whole.
The women were freed from the constraints and fixed ideas of "I have to do this" and "I have to be this way. Things that they had stubbornly held inside themselves that they could not say, that they did not want to be known, somehow became loose and open, and they opened themselves up to become people who can express themselves openly and lightly. Then, their true feelings will begin to peek out.
From March 24 to 28, the UNESCO-accredited educational program Gaia Youth was held in Suzuka, and Academy students joined its staff.
Here is how Takky, an Academy student who joined the staff, felt about the participants, who ranged in age from 20 to 27.
I can melt into any person.
I can communicate with anyone.
I want to become such a person.
And I want to be a person who can light up people' s lives brightly.
When they are with that person, they can see their true feelings in full.
And the things they were worried about become silly.
I want to be that kind of person.
I felt that way as I listened to everyone's stories.
The four days we spent together.
The honesty and genuineness warmed my heart again and again.
Everyone is poka-poka soaked.
Interacting with the Academy students on the tour.
I wanted to introduce them to everyone, my brothers and sisters.
Tomorrow is the last day.
From here, a new start for everyone.
Something is coming out of each and every one of us.
I felt that this kind of thing is like planting a seed.
Something that has been lying dormant inside each one of us will come out.
I don't know when it will sprout.
Is it more like watering than sowing seeds?
Some participants said it was warm, warm.
I wonder what they are feeling.
An attempt at Suzuka.
Like So-chan said, we are trying to do something here and now that has never been accomplished in the history of mankind.
Touching the spirit of this place, feeling something that has never been done before, each of us will be changed inside.
It's only been five days, but it's like we're moving forward.
So far, the community has prepared a place called the Academy.
The members of the community have embraced the Academy students.
This will not change in the future, but now a new trend is emerging.
The Academy students themselves have created a place called the Academy.
The Academy students create and embrace new Academy students.
On April 8, four new young people from Korea, Dajeong, Sujung, Minju, and Seulgi, will enter the Academy.
Then, one after another, from Japan and from around the world...
They will become "people who can melt into each other.
They become "people who can be welcomed".
The Academy has come into its own.
As we approach the fifth year of the Academy, the floodgates have been
opened.
