Interview for Human Security Program’s Students in Indonesia

Dear all! Human Security Program of Tohoku University is a joint educational program organized by four Graduate Schools of the university, incorporating their rich experiences in academic researches and international cooperation. The program aims at contributing intellectually towards building an international society where people enjoy secure and stable life free from fear and want. Each graduate school offers its own program: Food & Agriculture for Human Security, Public Health Sciences for Human Security, Human Security and Society and Human Security and Environment respectively. Human Security Program also affiliated with Future Global Leadership as Graduate school English course. For more detail, please see this link http://human-security.jp/.

Anyway, since 2009, this program has been conducting the Linkage Course Program with Brawijaya University of Malang, Indonesia. The students are selected Indonesian Civil Servants who got a scholarship from the Indonesian Government. I want to take this opportunity to tell you a story of my journey assisting Prof. Hitoshi Yonekura and Assoc. Prof. Nina Takashino from Graduate School of Agricultural Science, to interview the Indonesian students who apply to Human Security Program.

Interview process.

From 8 students, only 4 will be selected to join this program. The materials of the interview are their research plan during their study, and a discussion session after they present it.

Besides doing interview, Sensei also supervised my research. It is about disaster impact in the rural area, and my focus is the Sidoarjo Mudlow Disaster (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidoarjo_mud_flow for more information).

Sidoarjo Mudflow at a glance

In brief about the mudflow, it has been appearing since 2006 and it is predicted that it will not stop for the next 30 years. The amount of impact and losses have been inflicted include infrastructure issues, social and economic among others: inundating 12 villages with a population of about 40,000 people of 700 acres. We did research in the rural area surrounding the disaster area, and you can see at a glance about my research area.

Briefing to the community, before we conduct an interview each person.

That’s all about my journey to Indonesia with my supervisors. Otsukaresamadeshita!

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Photos and text by

-bayu-