Sulaiman Salik, a 15-year-old Muslim boy from the southern Philippine city of Cotabato on the island of Mindanao, was nursing a gunshot wound in a hospital when he met Tomo Matsui, an author from Tokyo, five years ago.
An orphan, Salik was then under the care of government welfare personnel after having been caught in crossfire between Muslim rebels and government forces in nearby Pikit in North Cotabato Province in central Mindanao.
"When Tomo-san saw me at the hospital, he told me he'd send me to school. Of course, I agreed right away," Salik, now in the sixth grade, said in a recent interview at the Mindanao Children's Library Foundation in Kidapwa.