Activities

In the CAMPUS Asia Plus Program, students are offered opportunities to deepen their practical learning through collaboration with international organizations and seminars led by practitioners. In the fall semester of 2025, as part of the course Risk Management II at the Graduate School of International Cooperation Studies (GSICS), students visited the Microsoft AI Co-Innovation Lab Kobe* and participated in a field trip on the theme of “War memory, its politicization, and links to present and future risks.” Below are comments from the participants.

＊A peace museum dedicated to commemorating the victims of the Osaka air raids and conveying the horrors of war and the importance of peace. It collects and exhibits materials related to wartime experiences, especially those of the air raids, with the aim of passing these memories on to future generations.

Vongsavanthong Vonethaly (Laos)
For me, this fieldwork helped me understand that risk is not only physical. It can also be historical and emotional. A society becomes stronger when it remembers its past honestly.
At the same time, I learned that memory can be changed, reduced, or influenced by politics. That means memory itself can create new risks.
This visit helped me connect peace, memory, and resilience with my own studies. Building peace is not only about laws or policies, it is also about how people choose to remember their history.

Volavong Thanouxay (Laos)
This visit helped me understand how war memory serves as a tool for risk prevention in the future. It also reminded me of Laos’s own war history, especially the heavy bombing along the Lao border with Vietnam and the ongoing UXO problem in Laos. which continues to threaten rural communities. Both of Osaka and Laos faces the risk of historical forgetting. moreover, I noticed that the role of women during the wartime had participated as soldiers, protectors, and caretakers in both Japanese and Laotian contexts.

Anjum Mobasshir (Bangladesh)
The visit reminded me that memory itself is part of risk management. In Bangladesh, we also experienced a painful war, the 1971 Liberation War against Pakistan. Our Liberation War Museum in Dhaka keeps that memory alive, just as Peace Osaka does for Japan. Both museums show how war destroys families, education, and cities. Seeing Peace Osaka helped me connect Japan’s history with my own country’s experience. It showed me that risks are not only natural or economic, but also political and historical. Honest, inclusive memory is necessary to build resilience and prevent future conflicts.

Yun Yunsang (South Korea)
This fieldwork deepened my understanding of risk as something shaped not only by natural forces but also by human decision making. Witnessing children’s belongings, photographs of hardship, and family letters made me recognize how war can cause suffering far more severe and long lasting than many natural disasters. As someone who learned history primarily in the Korean education system, this visit also allowed me to encounter aspects of wartime experience that are often avoided or underemphasized in South Korea. Viewing these materials directly in Japan helped me understand the shared human costs of war and the complexity of historical memory.

Hitesh (India)
I now understand that hazards are not only about nature or technology, but also about human choices—wars, violence, and political decisions. The museum shows this by bringing to life the suffering, creativity, solidarity, and resourcefulness of people in wartime, which is true resilience. The memorial helps build the “memory muscle.” When people remember past hardships and mistakes, they are less likely to repeat them. The museum encourages hard questions and honest thinking about war, peace, and human actions. It doesn’t just keep the past; it helps us make better, more peaceful decisions for the future. Making our collective memory stronger helps us build a safer, kinder, and more resilient society.