News Headlines

On April 18, the 10th Headquarters Leaders Meeting was held at the Tokyo Toda Memorial Auditorium. The meeting commemorated May 3—Soka Gakkai Day and Soka Gakkai Mother’s Day—and was attended by 280 Soka Gakkai members from 60 countries and territories who were in Japan for the SGI Spring Training Course. In his speech, Soka Gakkai President Minoru Harada talked about how President Daisaku Ikeda saw the process of creating world peace as an extension of the spirit of friendship, the wish for a friend’s happiness. Soka Gakkai Women’s Division Leader for Japan Masami Nasu encouraged participants to engage in dialogue transcending all differences for a peaceful world.

On April 5, Korea SGI (KSGI) held an elementary level Buddhist study exam at venues across the country. During a visit to the KSGI Eunpyeong Culture Center in Seoul, KSGI General Director Kim In Soo encouraged people taking the exam to build a firm sense of self through the study of Buddhism. From April 10 to 14, some 2,300 SGI-USA members and friends also took elementary and intermediate level Buddhist study exams, which covered the basic principles and practice of Nichiren Buddhism as well as material from President Daisaku Ikeda’s lectures on The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin.

From March 23 to 29, representatives of the Soka Amazon Institute participated in the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (COP15) in Campo Grande, Brazil. On March 27, the institute hosted an event titled “Migratory Species in the Amazon: Challenges, Human Impacts, and Environmental Education as a Conservation Strategy.” At the event, a documentary created by the institute on the impact of plastic and microplastic on birdlife around the Negro and Solimões Rivers was introduced. Some 45 people, including COP15 participants and researchers, attended and discussed the role of education in protecting the environment.