Soka Gakkai Delegation Attends Events in Oceania

In early October, Soka Gakkai General Director Shigeo Hasegawa and SGI Women’s Leader Yumiko Kasanuki led a delegation to Oceania to commemorate the 60th anniversary of President Daisaku Ikeda’s first visit to the region in 1964.

The delegation attended a general meeting held by SGI-Australia on October 2, a day celebrated within the Soka Gakkai as World Peace Day. The meeting was held at the Australia Culture Centre in Sydney, with venues nationwide connected online. They also met with Dr. Stuart Rees, emeritus professor at the University of Sydney and former director of the Sydney Peace Foundation, who coauthored a dialogue, Peace, Justice and the Poetic Mind: Conversations on the Path of Nonviolence, with President Ikeda in 2018.   

In New Zealand, on October 4, the delegation attended a pōwhiri, a traditional Māori welcoming ceremony, at Wharewaka Marae, a center where functions are held in Wellington. Cultural advisor and consultant, Kura Moeahu, and former Minister of State, Hon Mahara Okeroa, gave welcome speeches. Mr. Hasegawa also spoke, expressing his determination to promote peace with the a spirit of mutual respect. Later, the delegation joined some 300 representatives from Soka Gakkai organizations in Oceania for a women’s general meeting at the Beehive, part of the parliamentary complex in Wellington. Member of Parliament Hon Ingrid Leary addressed the meeting commending the members for striving to create peace both in their daily lives and in their communities.

On October 5, the delegation also attended the opening of a new Soka Gakkai center in Wellington.