国際協力のプロ育成を目指して

[From March Issue 2011]

Director General of Earth the Spaceship
YAMAMOTO Toshiharu

Doctor YAMAMOTO Toshiharu had been dispatched to both West Africa and Afghanistan to work as a doctor. While stationed there, his personal goal was to ensure that the locals could continue to provide medical care among themselves after he and the other staff left, but he gradually began to feel that “there was only so much one doctor could do.” This realization led him to establish a nonprofit organization in 2004 called “Earth the Spaceship.”

The first time Yamamoto visited a foreign country was when he was in the sixth grade of elementary school. “My father, who was an oculist, had to go to South Africa for work, so I accompanied him for about two weeks. It was during the time of apartheid, and when I arrived at the airport, I was shocked to see that the gates for white people were separate from those for colored races,” he recalls. Later, Yamamoto went on to medical college planning to take over his father’s clinic, but because he wanted more control over his own life, he decided to major in both internal medicine and pediatrics.

Working as a doctor after graduation, Yamamoto earned a Doctor of Medicine degree while also engaging in gene therapy research. Before long, he became the Director of the general hospital in Kanagawa Prefecture, but felt conflicted about pursuing this career path, despite deciding to forego the family clinic. It was then that Yamamoto recalled the situations he witnessed in the developing countries he had often visited to take photographs, a hobby he enjoyed even after becoming a doctor.

“Even if an international cooperation organization builds a hospital, once they leave, it just ends up a concrete box,” he says. So he soon left the hospital’s directorship and registered with five international cooperation organizations as a doctor to be dispatched to developing countries. In 2001, he traveled to Sierra Leone, West Africa on behalf of Doctors Without Borders. After that experience, he supplied medical help in five other countries, including Afghanistan.

At present, while continuing to work as a doctor in Japan, Yamamoto spends most of the year on Earth the Spaceship activities. One of its main projects is increasing the number of professionals engaged in international cooperation. “International cooperation tends to be seen as voluntary, but a U.N. or government sponsored program pays over 8 million yen, which is double the average annual income of a Japanese worker. I would like it to be seen as a career path,” he says. In recent years, he has been cooperating with the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in offering special classes at elementary and middle schools to introduce the possibilities of international cooperation offer.

Another ETS project is holding “drawing events” where people around the world draw “the things most important to them.” “Children in Africa draw water, children in Nepal draw schools, and children in Cambodia draw life without war and landmines. Through these drawings, you can see the problems those countries have,” he says, explaining that to date, more than 70 different countries have already participated in this project. “Our goal is to have 200 countries and regions participate,” Yamamoto says.

Earth the Spaceship

[2011年3月号掲載記事]

宇宙船地球号事務局長 山本敏晴さん

医師である山本敏晴さんは、西アフリカやアフガニスタンなどで派遣医師をしていました。自分たちが去った後も現地の人たちだけで医療を続けられるようにしたいという独自の目標がありましたが、次第に「一人の医師にできることには限界がある」と感じ始めます。そんな思いから、2004年、NPO法人「宇宙船地球号」を設立しました。

山本さんが初めて外国を訪れたのは小学校6年生のときでした。「眼科医だった父親の仕事の関係で南アフリカに2週間ほど滞在しました。アパルトヘイトの時代で、空港に降りたときから白人用と有色人種用にゲートが分かれていてショックでした」と振り返ります。やがて、父親の医院を継ぐために医科大学に進みましたが、「自分の人生は自分で決めよう」と、内科と小児科を専門に学びました。

卒業後は医師として働く一方、医学博士の学位を取り、遺伝子治療の研究にも励みました。やがて神奈川県の総合病院で院長を務めるようになりましたが、「家業を継がないと決めたのに、このまま終わっていいのか」と悩みました。そんなとき、医師になってからも続けていた趣味の写真撮影で何度も訪れていた発展途上国の実情を思い出しました。

「国際協力団体が病院をつくっても、彼らが去ってしまえばただのコンクリートの箱になってしまう」。院長をしていた病院をすぐに辞め、5つの国際協力団体に派遣医師として登録しました。2001年、「国境なき医師団」の依頼で西アフリカのシエラレオネに渡りました。その後もアフガニスタンなど5ヵ国で医療活動を行いました。

現在も日本で医師を続けながら、一年の大半を宇宙船地球号の活動にあてています。事業の一つは、国際協力のプロを増やすことです。「国際協力は無償と思われがちですが、国連や政府系の場合、日本人の平均年収の2倍である800万円以上が支払われます。職業として知ってほしいです」と語ります。近年は文部科学省と協力して、国際協力を紹介する特別授業を小・中学校で行っています。

世界の人々に「一番大切なもの」を描いてもらう「お絵描きイベント」も、事業の一つです。「水を描くアフリカの子や、学校を描くネパールの子、戦争や地雷のない暮らしを描くカンボジアの子がいます。絵を通じてその国の問題が見えてきます」と説明します。これまで世界約70カ国以上から参加者があり、「目標は200の国や地域です」と話します。

宇宙船地球号

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