From the Foundation

Assistant Program Officer Kenta Kusuda visited Australia from Thursday, December 13, to Wednesday, December 19.

In the Australian capital of Canberra, he met with Tessa Morris-Suzuki, who is both a professor at the Australian National University and a convener in the Asian Civic Rights Network. She coordinates the “Asian Civic Rights Network: National Security, Media, and the Promotion of Rights in the Twenty-First Century” project through the Toyota Foundation’s Asian Neighbors Network Program. Mr. Kusuda was deeply impressed by Professor Morris-Suzuki’s proactive approach to communicating the results of the project to the outside world, as well as by the pace of progress in the project. She was filled with determination to engage society further through a variety of media, including international symposiums, website, and a video blog, in addition to traditional formats like publications and papers. This sort of approach is increasingly required of researchers.

Mr. Kusuda then paid a visit to Orange, a small provincial city of 30,000 people, to visit Karma Tshering, who is undertaking the project “Toward a Bhutanese Vision for Gross National Happiness: Developing a Sustainable Tourism Model for Protected Areas” in the Research Grant Program. Although presently a postgraduate research student at the University of Sydney (Orange campus), Mr. Tshering is a veteran of nature preservation projects with a career spanning more than 10 years and hopes to return to Bhutan after earning his graduate degree to do his best for his homeland. In his research results, he states, “Who would want to visit a westernized Bhutan? Development is meaningless unless we preserve the good things in Bhutan to the greatest possible extent.” It will be fascinating to see what effects his results will have on Bhutan, a country that advocates the unique concept of Gross National Happiness.

After meeting with Professor Morris-Suzuki and Mr. Tshering for the first time, Mr. Kusuda described them as completely different from the impressions given by their books and project proposals. This experience has reaffirmed the Foundation’s belief in the importance of meeting with researchers face-to-face in their local environment and listening to what they have to say, and we would like to thank these two individuals for making time for Mr. Kusuda despite their busy schedules.