Jane Best is the president of Refugees International Japan, an independent, nonprofit organization based in Tokyo. Since its foundation 32 years ago, RIJ's dedicated volunteers and staff have been raising funds in Japan and working on projects to help support refugees around the world. Before joining RIJ 11 years ago, Jane was quite a nomad: She worked in Zambia with the UK Voluntary Service Overseas, was restaurant manager in a British department store and ran a British restaurant in Tokyo. Now settled in the mountains of Tokyo and feeling very much at ease, Jane continues to work relentlessly to assist refugees in reaching their objective: a way home.
Every conflict, wherever in the world, matters to all of us. Some people may wonder why we should care about a conflict on the other side of the world. Besides the obvious humanitarian aspect, conflicts matter because they destabilize the world economy. Natural disasters can do the same.
Earthquakes shake people in many ways. After the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake on March 11, we saw a huge increase in volunteerism in Japan. At first, many parts of the Tohoku region had more volunteers than they could accept.