AFARI is the US-based non-profit fund-raising and support organization for the Asian Rural Institute (ARI). ARI is an international training center in Japan. Participants from developing countries in Asia, Africa and the Pacific are invited to study at ARI for nine months in sustainable, organic agriculture techniques, leadership and community development. ARI invites 25 to 30 grassroots rural leaders to study at Nasushiobara, Japan, every year.
2007 AFARI Annual Meeting
Save the date
for our
Annual General Meeting!
*Friday, June 22, 10 a.m. Hartford, CT
Asylum Hill Congregational Church
814 Asylum Avenue
Hartford, CT 06105
From Interstate I-84 take Exit 48 (Asylum Street Exit)
Turn West onto Asylum Street - bearing right at Y onto Asylum Avenue - continue 4 blocks.
Asylum Hill Congregational Church is the large brownstone church on the right at 814 Asylum
Ave.
We have well lit, off-street parking in our
attended lot on the right side of the church.
AFARI members and friends meet for lunch
and presentation by ARI Director Isao Nozaki,
Fr. Laksiri Peiris, Steven Cutting, and AFARI Development Coordinator J.B. Hoover .
Small group meetings for brainstorming and planning in the afternoon, how to:
a) plan a visit or work camp to ARI,
b) share ARI’s work & mission locally,
c) do & encourage planned giving,
d) recruit volunteers for ARI,
e) help edit Harvest III (ARI grad updates)
Labels: Meeting Announcement
Speaking Tour: Father Kalsiri Peiris and Steven Cutting
In 2006, Father Laksiri Peiris, a 1995 ARI participant, and Steven Cutting, Ecumenical Relations staffer from ARI, made two speaking tours in the U.S. -- one in New England with some side trips to Columbus, New York City, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the other (May) in Kansas, Minnesota and Nebraska. Flying “solo,” Steven visited Guelph, Ontario, where Canadian AFARI member Anne Dance arranged speaking engagements for him, and Laksiri did the Seattle-and-surroundings gigs (June) with J.B. Hoover after Steven returned to Japan. Kay Shanks, Manhattan KS, organized the Midwest tour in May and kept Steven, her nephew, and Laksiri really busy! During the tours, they presented the story and mission of ARI at churches, community service groups, seminaries, colleges…to groups of neighbors of Karen and Brian Festa at their B & B in E. Poultney, VT (www.birdhouseinnVT.com) and Pam Hasegawa in Morristown, NJ.In the picture to the right, Fr. Laksiri and Steven visit with students at Union Seminary in New York City.
Laksiri, an Anglican Priest from the Diocese of Kurunegala in Sri Lanka, cared for eight rural parishes in that district. After his initial ARI training, he went back to his community and used what he had learned from staff and fellow participants about community organizing to uplift the people of the Church of St. Peter and Paul Hewadiwela and their neighbors. He calls ARI his “second seminary” because that is where he learned to put theology into action -- to live out God’s call to love our neighbors.
During the years since Laksiri’s return, the community developed and implemented several projects:
- Formed small women's groups in order to set up a group savings and loan system
- Within these groups, women were able to take on leadership roles in which they had not served before.
- Established small income-generating enterprises, including home gardening; raising poultry, pigs and goats; making hand- loomed linens, and setting up small neighborhood shops
- Set up savings plans for women and children to provide for their education
- Set up a co-op shop in the church center selling school items for children
- Planned and constructed a new two-story parish building for children's education
Ten years after being a participant, Fr. Laksiri was invited back to serve as a training assistant to share his experiences with the 2004 ARI community. In the fall of 2006 he was sent by his diocese to serve as a missionary in the diocese of Tokyo, Anglican Church of Japan, who placed him in the service of ARI.
In the picture to the left, Laksiri enjoyed some quiet time in the garden at the home of Nancy and Leverne Barrett, who hosted AFARI members Carla and Christopher Grundy (former ARI volunteer) and their children following the First-Plymouth Congregational Church event in Lincoln, NE, planned by Barbara Smisek, Associate Minister.
Labels: Speaking Tour
|
Hosting provided by the UniYatra Group, LLC
|
Copyright © 2006, American Friends of ARI, All Rights Reserved
|
