During this summer, I plan to travel around Europe to find new locations for Pangaea activities. Pangaeans in Europe started to search actively in last two months to locate fundings to start up new locations. Greg and I have Skype meeting every Monday now. Also I started to contact my old friends in Denmark, and Sweden. These are the people who helped to think our mission at the starting phase 4 years ago. Since then, we worked very hard to create the activity package to deliver to the world. I am very excited to add new locations to Vienna site which currently operating twice a month at youth center. In late August, Toshi and I will travel to Kenya and Vienna again. Mohan who has been helping us to find a good location is corresponding with me every week now. We are ready to meet those who are interested in our project. Please contactif you like to bring Pangaea in your country.

Hello Everyone!

We hosted facilitator training sessions at Seoul, Tokyo, Mie, and Kyoto during the month of May. Boy! That was quite a trip. In total, we now have 25 new trained facilitators, they soon will be receiving Certificate for taking the Pagnaea Facilitator Training session. Compared to previous trainings, we tried to focus more to cover how to communicate and deal with various situations with participants, and repeatedly described the importance of surrounding environment, such as setting a space, formations of groups etc. Materials used for training now Ver. 3 since we started the program, and it improved so much in appearances and contents. In Seoul, many university students from various schools have come, in Tokyo, we had a cool looking consultant was among members with high school student who participated Pangaea in past three years as a participant. In Mie, employee of IT Venture company, and in Kyoto, college students took a part. Well, although doing these in 3 weeks, it was really a great fun for myself and Toshi. After each session, we reviewed, and tried to improve each time. By the time we returned back to Kyoto, being the fourth round, things got really well.



Last week, Pangaea was selected at Microsoft NPO assisting funds as this was 3% Passing rate.
We now can presume to create good Webcam contents with this fund. Toyota Foundation fund now enables us to push facilitators communications network, and this fund is now being used very effectively. We now have regular communication paths with German speaking or Korean speaking facilitators using Langrid project tool. These funds are very nice to push Pangaea forward. Having the requirement for writing the report and deadline are not all that bad, as this forces us to work hard and effectively. Without such deadlines, I sometimes feel bit lazy... I must admit.

From this month, we changed the style of Newsletter as you notice. Less writers! But this is not to say we are lazy.

As we see the increase of activity in access from different countries. I will be in Europe this summer. I hope to see some of you there!

Yumi

I am Toshio Nagahisa, a member of the Board of Pangaea. I have been acquainted with Yumiko for almost 20 years. We met each other when we were studying at UCLA as (young) graduate students, although our majors were different. Her major was Pedagogy and mine, Political Science.



I had a chance to meet with Mr. Tokuo Kitamura, a composer who has survived the World Wide II as a member of the suicide corps. He founded 'TAIYO NO KAI' with his personal fund with the idea that the young people of the world need to understand each other from the time of growing up in order to avoid the tragedy of the war in the world. He had projects such as music activities and painting exhibitions and so on. The timing made his activity hard to expand as there was lack in the means of communication.

When I first heard about the Pangaea project, what I had in my mind was that the Pangaea was the same idea as 'TAIYO NO KAI' and that the timing was so right that we are now in the IT era. From the stand point of the political science, it is rather difficult to say, the bond the children would have with each other would eliminate the disputes and the war, but there are possibilities, or rather, there is new hope right here, I thought.

Konosuke Matsushita, the founder of PANASONIC also created PHP Research Institute Inc. wishing to pursue and materialize the peace, happiness and prosperity which he believed that we human beings were all given at our heart but did not know how to maintain them, as he was going through the tough times Japan faced after the World War II. PHP stands for the initials of "Peace, Happiness and Prosperity." Publishing operation is also a part of this activity.

I realize TAIYO NO KAI, NPO Pangaea and PHP fundamentally share the same idea and I believe that we would also have many associates out there both in Japan and in the world.

Toshio Nagahisa, Pangaea Member of the Board
Director /Member of the Board, Second Research Division,
PHP Research Institute, Inc.

Long awaited Webcam Activity was held on Saturday, June 6th in Kyoto. Children all waited for this day, and they seem to be a bit nervous at the beginning. We practiced with Cho san how to greet with Korean, as Korean children practiced in Japanese. Once we've met on Webcam, and played Koetsuna, things started to warm up. My favorite thing quiz was a big hit, as both sides were able to find someone to figure out from three hints what the person's favorite thing is. Everyone was able to greet with foreign langugage, and when they greet and announce their names one by one, friends in other side of Webcam all answered with their greeting with your name. Children's faces flash up with big smiles. They used Giant Pictons effectively, and had a great fun. Things got very excited, and at the end of session, they were all waving their hands to their friends. Moment of happiness......... For many staffs it was their first time experiencing Webcam. They now see the whole picutre how Pangaea is trying to bring a universal playground around the world.

Pangaea was nominated for the 5th Microsoft NPO Support Program, sponsored by Microsoft Japan. The themes of the program this year were: “the Maximization of the Potentiality of the People”, and “the Pursuit of the Solution of Social Issues”. In this program, Pangaea will work on the Project to Develop ITC Simultaneous Activity Contents to Bond Children across the World, to suit its mission. We will report the progress of the project to this blog.