For the first three months in Japan, we studied basic and key Japanese used frequently in everyday living. The teachers were very kind. To this day, I am communicating with everyone in Japanese, using the words taught by these teachers. The teachers always answered questions from us, however many questions we had. I enjoyed these Japanese lessons more than anything else during the training, because I loved Japanese kanji characters. For us trainees, teachers were the most important people in our daily life in Japan. Thank you so much.

For my home-stay program I visited and stayed with three different families: the Ota family in Kanagawa Prefecture and the Nakamori and Miyagi families in Okinawa Prefecture. In Kanagawa at the Ota family’s home, we celebrated mother (Mrs Ota)’s birthday. Mrs Ota cooked us wonderfully tasty food every day. The weather in Okinawa was good. Miyagi-san and I went to visit an ancient building from the Ryukyu era. We also put on traditional clothes of Okinawa and took many pictures.

Between January 23 and 26, we went skiing. It snows in my country, but I had never skied before. I had never even thought I could ski, so this was a huge surprise for me. The instructors encouraged us, saying that if we practiced with them, we would be able to ski in the end. I fell over so many times but I kept trying. It made me so happy when, eventually, I managed to ski.

For the next five months, I studied something that was very important for me personally. It was centers for independent living. Until then I wanted to have fun in Japan and wanted to just enhjoy things, like sports for people with disabilities. During the individual training however, I came to know about Japan’s centers for independent living which was a great learning experience. Let me explain about centers for independent living. Suppose you are totally immobile because of your severe disability. You want to eat something, go somewhere, or meet someone, but you cannot do these things by yourself. What will you do? The answer: you decide what you would like to eat, where you would like to go, with whom, to do what, all by yourself, and then ask a center for independent living for support. The staff at the center for independent living acts as your arms and legs. They help you make what you want to do happen.

I first learned about centers for independent living at Center for Independent Living STEP-Edogawa, but I did not understand it 100% at the time. I was still thinking about having fun and playing sports. Then, I visited several centers for independent living in Okinawa, and was introduced to their activities through Mr Niigaki, Ms Nagai, and other members of staff. The objective of the activities is to talk about the lives of people with disabilities, barrier-free society, and issues faced by people with disabilities, so that the government, school children and everyone in society will have a better understanding. These activities are very important, because they help people, who do not know much about people with disabilities, gradually understand about people with disabilities. In my country, no one knows about centers for independent living. No one even knows that they exist. I began to spend a long time thinking about how I could start a center for independent living in my country. My next destination was Mainstream Association. At Mainstream, people with disabilities looked very happy because they were able to do what they wanted to do. Seeing this made me realize that the most important thing for a person’s life with disability is the concept of independent living. My feelings of wanting to establish a center for independent living in my country grew stronger. Consequently I visited many centers for independent living, to gain knowledge and learn more through each center’s activities and problems.

My last training took place at Saito Kobo, where I learned about how to fix wheelchairs. Being able to go anywhere one wishes, using a wheelchair, is not unrelated to the concept of independent living, so I would like to start a company like Saito Kobo in my country. That way, people with disabilities can go anywhere, using wheelchairs.

I am very happy because I learned so many things from the people I met during my training.

In my country, there are so many issues surrounding people with disabilities. They include the presence of so many barriers, the lack of people who know anything about independent living, and the lack of job opportunities for people with disabilities. I would, however, like to solve these problems little by little. It is difficult to work on these issues alone, so first, I would like to gather some peers, and also consult with my family. To gather peers, I would like to tell many people about the things I learned in Japan. I would like to ask for opinions from students with disabilities at my university, and my friends with disabilities because they have good knowledge of law. I would then like to cooperate with my peers, to create a webpage carrying information about people with disabilities, not just targeted at people with disabilities, but everyone, including boys and girls, and people without disabilities. Through that webpage I would like them to know about people with disabilities, and plan various activities about disabilities. Then I will work with my peers to solve issues faced by people with disabilities. I do not have any concrete plans yet, but I will work hard, leveraging all the important knowledge from everyone.

I would like to express my thanks to everyone, including my Japanese, swimming and ski instructors, everyone from Japanese Society for Rehabilitation of Persons with Disabilities, my individual training and the Duskin AINOWA Foundation. Thank you so much. Your work is wonderful. You have helped people with disabilities from various countries of Asia, teaching them many important things in Japan, myself included. I am committed to work hard for people with disabilities after I go back to my country. The most important thing—“everyone has the same human heart. No matter where you are, no matter who you are, whether you have a disability or not.”