It was like a dream to come to Japan but it came really true in my life

I arrived in Japan to learn many things, and especially about lives of disabled persons. At first I spent my time to learn Japanese language for 3 months. Actually 3 months, it is not enough, but if we try hard, we can communicate with Japanese people. Japanese language is very difficult, because, as you know, there are Hiragana Katakana and Kanji. I learned Hiragana and Katakana for official of general communication. For myself, Hiragana is very easy to read, but Katakana is a little bit difficult. However I tried my best for 3 months and even if it was not going easily but I could speak and communicate with Japanese people. At the beginning I was nearly crazy with a dept of Japanese ocean, as I did not understand at all what they were talking to me in Japanese. You see, many Japanese people could not speak English and that was why I motivated myself in order to learn Japanese. If I wanted to make Japanese friends, I had to find Japanese friends who could not speak English, then eventually I had to speak Japanese. Finally 3 months of Japanese Lessons finished, so I became to be able to speak some Japanese and could understand what they were talking about. Even if I could not understand all, I could speak and express my feeling by using heart to heart for communication,

Actually it was also like a dream that I had an opportunity to go to beautiful Yuzawa ski place with a lot of snow-mountains. I had a good experience with ski program, even if it was short time. I was so happy enjoying this event and Yuzawa was very nice place. We saw the mountains in the morning, with much snow on the trees and top of mountain. How beautiful they were! My ski-teacher taught me how to control my chair-ski so that I could manage by myself, however it was difficult. As you see, it was the first time for my life with ski-experience. So I will share this experience with my friends when I return back to my country and will tell them how beautiful this places was in Japan. It was so great opportunity to learn skiing on the beautiful snow-mountains.

I was accepted to stay with Japanese family for one week around the new year of 2003 and during at that time I learned many things about Japanese culture and Japanese family. Even if we sometime have different customs, it is very interesting to see New Year decoration of Japanese culture. I did many things together with my host parents, they taught me many things about Japanese culture and life style of Japanese people. On Omisoka, December 31st I ate Soba with father and mother. Soba was one of the Japanese traditional food for New Year. We ate together and talked something about Cambodia and Japan. Oh! Soba was very delicious. Every day I got up at 7AM and mother prepared breakfast and father and I did something to clean the house then ate together and talked many things about the lives of Japanese. We went to play sports together and many places in Osaka including sky-building.

My father and mother are very kind and friendly. I really love them so much, and love them like my true parents. As they taught me many things, I hope to see them again someday, I will tell the story about my host parents to my family in Cambodia

My individual training was from January until May 30th 2003

The first place of my individual training was in Okinawa (beautiful Island in Japan). I spent in Okinawa for 2 months and after that in Nagoya nearly for 2 month to learn about NGO management, Independent Living for activities of disabled persons, it was very interesting to learn the movements of disabled persons there

I visited many places to see activities and movements of people with disabilities. Here many disabled people live independently and they are so happy as well for this situation and they consider more about their lives.

I have learned more from them about how to improve the quality of lives to live in their community. In each CIL, there were many activities of disabled people and very useful. And some time I visited the houses of severe disabled persons. And asked some questions on their living a lone, as it was different from my country. One day I asked them that `what is your feeling to live alone and if some problems happen how do you think about and how do you resolve?

They said: we are so happy to live independently and we can make decision by ourselves whenever we want to do something. Before, our family put us behind them but now we have freedom and when we have any problem at our apartment at night, we have security bell system and press the bell when a problem happens. Then the security will arrive immediately and bring us to the hospital. For the daily life, we have personal assistants who help us for preparing, bath, bed and some time for shopping or going somewhere.

By the way, they always meet each other to discuss how to improve quality of lives and suggest to the government or offices of prefecture according to their demands. At CIL offices they do something and sell them to the market so they can earn some income and some of IL centers plant flowers and the city office is responsible for bringing their produces.

It was very interesting to see their activities and I observed that all disabled people here were supported by Japanese government. So their lives are happy, which is different from Cambodia.

During at that time I spent time with Reiko san in Okinawa, Kinoshita san, Edo san and Yamada san in Nagoya and all the staff in IL offices to learn about NGO management and social welfare of Japan. By the way I observed that disabled people here, they did not want to live in welfare institutions, which were provided by government. When I asked them the reason why they did not want to live in welfare institutions, they said, if we lived in those institutions we have never known how to live in the community and it would be very far from non- disabled people and our society. By the way, we want to communicate with all people who live in the society and we want to see everything in our society as well. That is why we complain to the government and suggest everything, which we need for our lives.

I spent 4 days at Taiyo no Ie in Oita, which works for wheelchair production. At first I was invited to meet the President and vice president and some of junior staff. I also visited many places of JSI (Japanese Sun Industries). Aso san and Shinji san, they were very friendly and kind as well and they taught me many thing about how to cooperate network for wheelchair production in Cambodia. By the way I discussed with Ueno san & Aso san about their future plan. During the discussion I got very good information from Ueno san and Aso san about what we could do and network cooperation in the future. In Gunma I spent good time with Zaitsu san who was the director of Japan Cambodia Interactive Association and he taught many good experiences about proposal cooperation and he spent time to go to meet many people in Gunma prefecture where the staff of government and international associations discussed about how to submit proposals. Zaitsu san was very nice and concern about my activities in the future I got many good information for implementation in the future, and especially I spent my time to learn many Japanese culture with Zaitsu san as well.

I spent 3 weeks in Fukui prefecture to learn about CBR (Community Based Rehabilitation) with Akiko Kobayashi sensei. Akiko sensei was very kind and friendly during my stay, I learned a lot about how different between CBR in Japan and in Asia Pacific especially in my country Cambodia. I can pick up some things from the ways I have learned about CBR, which are suitable for my country. I also received many informations from those people. In Japan many things are available for CBR, and if it is compared to Cambodia, it is very much different. I learned many things and received information how to cooperate network in the future. So far I have a lot of friends in Japan so we hope to cooperate closely in the future. People in Fukui are very friendly and I have changed a lot of thing in my life.

Finally I would like to express my grateful for Duskin Ainowa foundation that provide the opportunities for disabled persons in Asia and the Pacific and I really appreciate for this program. By the way I would like to thank for JSRPD staff who work closely with us and concern about our training, Thank you very much!!!