No.193@@@2003.2.5
| Happy New Year! We can finally start our work at our own office this year. This has been our longtime dream. We appreciate the kind assistance extended by everyone concerned, which made it possible for us to realize our dream. At the same time, we reconfirm the role and the mission of the local UNESCO movement and make a new step forward together on the basis of the original cause of the movement. For this purpose, let me quote parts of two articles in an earlier bulletin issued March 31, 1975 entitled g20 Years of Meguro UNESCO Association.h Extracted from gMemories of the Foundation Time of the Meguro UNESCO Association,h an article by Mr.Mikio Shohoji, then the first Secretary-General and currently Advisor, we read: gAs Japan was admitted to the international society of UNESCO in July 1953, the Japan National Commission for UNESCO was established in Japan. In the early part of the following 1954, a movement was begun to create the Meguro UNESCO Association following the idea advocated by Mr. Hisaharu Kugimoto and Mr. Seiji Nakamura. Mr. Kugimoto was Deputy Secretary-General of the National UNESCO Committee of Japan, while Mr. Nakamura was Chief Secretary of the National Federation of UNESCO Associations in Japan and concurrently Managing Director of Sugar Business Association. I was working at the Japan National Commission for UNESCO and had close business contacts with both men. As all of us were living in Meguro City, it was only natural for us to think of creating the Meguro UNESCO Association. We frequently held preliminary meetings at Mr. Kugimoto's residence and moved forward step by step for 10 months before the foundation, during the period of which we succeeded in recruiting 50 promoters. We kept a good contact with the Meguro Board of Education, and finally on October 3 the general assembly was held at the Meguro City Hall for founding the Meguro UNESCO Association. Mr. Kugimoto drafted the prospectus and the statute.h Extracted from gFrom the Editors,h an article by Ms. Isako Kato, then Vice President and later the 5th President, we read: gMr. Mikio Shohoji, who acted as the Secretary-General for 17 years, kept a record of 20 years of activities of the Association in 5 notebooks. The books have been handed down over the years and the first 3 notebooks are worn thin with time. When I went through the records of the meeting, I felt a sense of solemnity as I read about the founding cause which stimulated our predecessors to take up the movement, and about the hardships they encountered along the way. It was this weight of our 20 year founding history which made me feel a sense of solemnity.h @ |