The first encounter of me, Mikiko Endo, and JOICFP was in November 2007 in the podcast program 'SAVE MOTHER from AIDS (Takako Minegawa, Sumie Ishii, Mikiko Endo)' of 'Club King' with the topic 'HIV-positive women in Ghana and Zambia' who raise their children with any energy they have, and I, as a mother, was really impressed by the stories about these strong women.

Honestly, before it began I was a little bit discomposed and asked myself questions like 'what will you feel when you see this misery?' or 'what is an appropriate reaction?'. But when I saw the program the first time, I was amazed by how strongly and with how much vitality these women resist the difficulties in their life.

So which way is better? Abundant things and information, as well as convenient child education like in Japan? Or a child education, where humans and nature always go hand-in-hand, although medicine and knowledge are low, like in Africa?

Even though we don't know each other, I suppose these women have a really strong heart. So some day, I said to myself, I want to become friends with them, meet them and talk to them!With the germination of this idea the first encounter with Africa was made.

Visiting Zambia

In the summer of 2008, four months after having the wish to meet the African women and become friends with them, I went to Africa together with the PR-team of JOICFP. It was a 14 days lasting research-tour into a Masai region in Zambia, which the 'Yagisan'-project is arranged for.

But while listening to the podcast with the interviews with the HIV-positive mothers, which has been recorded before, thoughts like "is it really true, that these women are pitiable and we are blessed?" came up. Therefore in these 14 days I wanted to find out my personal feelings about words like "donation", "contribute" "developing" or "industrialized". The encounters that happened, the emotions that I felt and the answers that I found there, all leaded to the article 'Mother Dictionary' with a lot of interviews on 'Club King'. By clicking on the pages, they will enlarge and can be seen better.

The puppets, which are created at the Yagisan-workshops, were invented by Machiko Watanabe of the puppet theatre PUK, located in Yoyogi.

The puppet theatre PUK does not only make stage performances but has also already provided its characters to the TV or movies. In the year 2007 Mrs?? Watanabe showed her cute handmade newspaper-puppets during the 'Konomoto Exhibition' in the rooms of the 'OZONE Living Design Centre' in Shinjuku for the first time.

I took part in the 'Let's make puppets out of newspaper!'- workshop which was also held at that time, learned how to make these puppets and because I really liked it, I kept on creating afterwards. 'Start with making the bones, then attach the meat.' This method is the base for the carving and the design. At the same time you to have think carefully about the shape of the animal you create. It's easy for adults and kids at the same time, and afterwards you have a wonderful puppet, which will never become boring.

So we are very happy that we can use the manufacturing skills invented by Ms Watanabe for the newspaper-puppets of our 'Yagisan'-workshops. And if we have the opportunity, we would like to invite Ms Watanabe, the founder of the idea, to hold a workshop together with us.