Translator: Reiko Bovee Reviewer: Claire Ghyselen
Hello, everyone!
(Audience: Hello)
Thank you for the introduction.
I am Sasaki, with the Solaputi Kids' Camp.
Before I start anything,
I'd like to say that I love the design of this stage.
I was talking to other speakers back there,
and I learned that it represents the trees and snow in Sapporo.
Don't you think it is awesome?
(Applause)
I have been waiting for a good moment to say how nice it is.
Now, let me start my talk.
I would like to talk about the construction of the dream camp,
the "Solaputi Kids Camp,"
dedicated to children struggling with serious illnesses.
I lived in Osaka for quite a long time, working as a Landscape Consultant.
You may wonder what a landscape consultant is.
I was planning and designing parks,
and yards of hospitals and so on.
I was designing and making such things as you see here.
I always feel awed by the wonders of nature,
and its power to heal us and to help us grow.
The nature in Sapporo has made that thought
even stronger than ever.
One day, I had the chance to talk to some pediatricians,
and I learned that in Japan, there are about 200,000 children
who are struggling with cancer, and other life-threatening diseases,
and that their dream was "to play outdoors."
I never thought it would be something to dream about,
but rather a matter of course for kids to want to play outdoors.
But for children with serious diseases, it is a "dream."
According to the doctors, one out of every 200 babies,
no matter how vigilant we are,
is born with some kinds of disease, or abnormalities.
The inevitable odds.
It is nobody's fault.
And we, who happen to be one of the 199 others,
are the healthy lucky ones.
It's important for us to think that way.
But I am thinking about what we could do
for the children suffering from illnesses and his or her families,
in order to provide them with support.
That is what I am thinking about together with pediatricians.
I love parks and plants, and it was actually my job.
So, I thought that, using my skills,
I could build a camp where these kids could play outdoors.
We began the project in 2004.
The city government offered us a piece of land
in Maruka Highland, Takigawa, Hokkaido,
to build facilities for this purpose.
If you are from here, Hokkaido, your first reaction would be:
"There's nothing special about this landscape."
To me, a guy from Honshu,
it looks as if it were somewhere in Switzerland or Canada.
It really does!
I know you will laugh but...
Are any of you from Honshu?
Can you believe, looking at this, that their reaction is:
"There's nothing special here"?
By the way, this is a horse-riding scene at a test camp.
I always tell people
that children and their families are getting emotional relief here,
saying, "Hokkaido is awesome."
What we at the camp do is this:
We pick up kids at the Haneda Airport, leaving their families there,
and the volunteer nurses bring them to the camp.
The children spend three nights and four days here and go back home.
Kids have a great time for sure,
but in fact, it also gives a short break to their families
during those 3 nights and 4 days.
Parents told me things like,
that they attended the annual school get-together party for the first time,
and these words made me happy too.
We also think this:
It may greatly help the families,
if the families who have similar problems get together
to share their stories with each other.
Such time must be very helpful for them.
Not only from other areas of Japan,
but also from this area in Hokkaido, there are such families.
For instance, a mother who takes care of her child with a respirator at home,
has been just taking short occasional naps
and has not worn any pajamas for ages,
in order to be ready anytime in case of emergency.
I wish I could give this mom a break, and take care of her kid for a while.
She could go to a beauty parlor, or the hot spring at Furano.
That's what I want to do,
and together with the nurses, we are making this come true.
For you, this scenery must also look like "a generic, ordinary landscape,"
but to many, it's not so ordinary.
Many haven't seen a snowy world white all over, like this.
It's only four days, but the kids feel so excited and emotionally healed
by their experience here.
It has been five years since I moved here,
and finally, I understand one thing: shoveling snow is tough... (Laughter)
Of course, it's no concern for the tourists,
so I shovel the snow as much as I can.
Nevertheless, I still think this world is really amazing.
After the first three camps, we realized that the brothers and sisters
had some difficult times too.
It's also inevitable that some children pass away.
There is a community called "Family Group" that provides grief recovery support
to the bereaved families all over Japan.
We are trying to create a camp to welcome the families from these groups.
"Memories" and "friends," "energy to live on," and "hope."
All this is what we want them to take back home from the camp.
We are seeing that nature actually makes it possible.
We've been doing test camps since 2004.
The facilities have been gradually getting ready,
but what truly matters is: the programs themselves,
the medical care system,
the volunteers' training and other support systems
that make our activities possible.
While we work on these,
more than 400 kids from all over Japan
have come to over 20 camps, and enjoyed our facilities.
They, of course, look happy and OK here, but emergencies do happen.
We have had the emergency transport team
come right after one child arrived in Sapporo.
After the camp, most of them go back to fight their battles,
however, five kids out of those who have come to our camp
have already passed away.
So, of course, it doesn't mean that this place will cure them at all,
but I would like them to remember that they are not alone,
that there are others who also have the same struggles.
I believe it's very important for the children to realize this.
I would like to share with you some episodes from the camp.
A child with cancer came directly from the hospital with his family.
He was in his wheelchair.
He was a little nervous at first, but began enjoying the stay so much
that he started standing on his feet, leaving his wheelchair behind!
He was walking with his nurse and sister.
All of us, we thought that this was the camp's magic at work,
a voice that kept on whispering to him, "What fun will come next?"
This picture shows big men from Hokkaido who are barbecuing.
Nothing extraordinary.
Looking at the barbecue,
one boy who couldn’t eat solid food offered the meat to his family
as if it were his own.
Magics like that are happening.
I got this message from a kid:
"I can't talk about my illness at school,
but at the camp, I could do so without any difficulties."
There is one kid whose cancer went into remission,
and he had to be hospitalized again.
As you know, when cancer comes back, the risk of death increases drastically,
so, it happened to this one kid, but he said to his doctor,
"It'll be OK, I think, as long as I can go to Solaputi."
The doctor told me the kid's reaction and that he felt relieved hearing it.
The doctor was so happy that a place like this existed.
At a family camp, one kid said,
"It is the first time I've seen my dad smile since I became been ill."
Even kids worry about their families, don't they?
While fighting against their illnesses,
they also care about their families, watch them carefully.
Also at another camp, one mother said,
"I thought that nobody could understand our struggle,
and that we were the only ones suffering.
I never thought there was a family nearby with the same struggle."
She also said: "I guess that the men who are barbecuing for our kids,
may not clearly understand the details of our problems,
but I can feel they are trying to support us.
This kind of experience helps us think that we are not alone,
and that realization gives us energy to go on."
That's nice to hear.
One boy who had multiple surgeries to cure his brain cancer said to me:
"I feel like something good will happen in the future,
because there is such a fun life as this!"
Magic from the camp is happening everywhere.
We have been collecting donations since 2007.
With the donations, we began building the facilities.
This picture is from when we just started our camp.
We have clustered our facilities
in one corner of this huge land of 16 hectares.
We can't neglect the medical issues and the kids' health conditions,
so with our medical staff, we go out exploring nature.
We have to be always ready for emergencies.
We have built, little by little,
"The Forest Information Center," "Nature Walk,", the "Nurse's Office,"
the cafeteria, the bathroom and the cottages.
All of this has been possible thanks to donations.
The kids fighting against disease and their families
are very happy about it.
We can feel how much they care about our progress.
The kids can take many things on when they are in nature.
The facilities were finished last summer.
This is our tree house built in the woods,
with the the help of a lot of people.
This couldn't have been realized anywhere else but Hokkaido.
It can accommodate ten people inside.
A person in a wheelchair can go inside too,
because it's built on a slope.
Even adults are having fun in it!
Enjoying time together with the adults,
kids feel like they are mischievous kids.
That's the atmosphere that I want for our camp.
Donations do not provide only the physical things,
but they also also make it possible for us to operate.
Since this is totally run by volunteers and donations,
it can't be possible or sustainable, unless our culture is transformed
into a culture based on charity and volunteerism.
Then we thought of this thing: A donation box.
We installed it a long time ago.
The Japan Association of Chain Drug Stores put the boxes for us in their drug stores;
there are 13,000 of them all over Japan.
Since there is one in every 13,000 stores, I dreamed and calculated this:
If each box collects ten thousand yen a year,
we will be able to raise 130 million yen a year!
I was counting chickens before they hatch...
It didn't go that nicely. (Laughter)
Still, we got a pretty good amount, about 20 million yen a year.
Little by little, from goodwill from a small number of people,
is turning into a big ring of goodwill.
This is a picture when I ran the Tokyo Marathon.
I was 15 kg heavier than now.
I looked like I ran the whole distance, but actually, it took me 7 hours,
so I would rather say that I walked it rather than ran through it.
Towards the end, even the AKB48 girls passed me one by one.
That's how I finished the race.
If you pay 100,000 yen for the Tokyo Marathon,
you are registered as a charity runner!
So those who want to run for sure can register as a charity runner.
The marathon is limited to three hundred charity runners,
so they collect 300 million yen in total.
This money is divided and donated to organizations like ours.
We got a share, but not because I ran in the marathon.
I was just interested in running it.
Movements like the Tokyo Marathon are happening right now.
Those kinds of big charity events have to be held more often in Japan.
That's what I believe.
I hope the memories the kids got at the camp
are giving them the energy to go on.
It would be wonderful
if the camp become their refuge in their hearts.
I'd like to make such a camp come true.
Because, even for those who can't or haven't come to the camp,
their hope to come or come back again,
can give them the courage to face their hardship.
I hope it will become a source of strength for them to fight on.
That is the camp I dream to create.
I believe that our camp has the power
to generate something new with the volunteers in our culture.
This may help change the medical care system
and the welfare system in Japan.
I wonder if what we do may generate something new in our society,
such as a culture based on charity and volunteering.
For example, if we integrated this into school education,
our society would develop into one where volunteering is natural.
That will keep spreading out once it starts.
If organizations like ours collaborated with the welfare offices,
our place would provide people with jobs.
They could cut grass, or do the cleaning or the laundry.
There are many things to do here,
so we can use the money from donations for the communities' welfare.
We can use the money for their salaries or something like that.
And it would lead to something even bigger.
That is why we keep working on it.
I am sure that Solaputi isn't alone,
and there must be others like us hidden in our society,
where the administrative services have no reach.
We need to take care of each other, in cooperation with each other.
This approach might be very important now.
If the issues we have in our society are shared at places like this one,
and we change our ideas and values,
we can change our society together,
and we could be happier, being able to help each other.
That's what I've been thinking.
I have talked big for a while,
but right now, our organization is struggling with snow.
I am not sure yet if it can be sustainable in the next ten or twenty years.
Since we can still man our posts for the next twenty or thirty years,
as long as we keep trying hard,
I am sure the situation will be different in 10 to 20 years
and we may be living in a different culture.
So, I would like these young people here in this audience,
to come and visit Solaputi 20 years from now,
to check if Solaputi still exists at Maruka Highland,
and make sure if what I am saying here right now is correct.
I really appreciate this opportunity
to talk about our new idea at a place like this.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for your time.
(Applause)