NowHow
25-02-2020
NowHow is an invitation to bring the SDGs to life by applying values that for centuries have supported the sustainability of communities in rural Japan. Visitors invited to a small village in the mountains of northeast Japan are encouraged to see themselves as community interns. They learn about local culture and history, work alongside people who live in the community, and consider the relevance of village think to the health of modern urban society. Attention focuses in particular on 44 Vanishing Values that Prof. Ryuzo Furukawa has identified in the course of discussing "life before convenience" with several hundred people aged 90 and over throughout Japan and in other countries. How can these universal values advance progress to global goals? Why are they currently vanishing? What are the consequences of their impending extinction for the differentiation of Japan from other travel destinations? And what, in the first place, is the benefit of engagement between insider and outsider to the health of any community? NowHow is an opportunity to address all of these questions -- and to experience Japan's subtle power to mend a broken heart.