[Learning about Different Societies and Cultures]
We will stay for six days and five nights in an Indigenous village in Papua. By experiencing different ways of life, we aim to better understand diverse cultures and societies. Activities include cooking, bathing in the river, learning how to collect sago starch (a staple food), visiting cacao farms, and attending Sunday worship. Participants will also conduct interviews with villagers based on self-chosen themes. After learning about different cultures and societies, we will reflect on and question what is considered “normal” in our own culture and society.

[Learning about International Relations]
We will visit both a corporate oil palm plantation and an Indigenous cacao farm. In rural Papua, large-scale oil palm plantation development by corporations is expanding, leading to tropical forest loss and having significant impacts on Indigenous communities. At the same time, there is a local enterprise, KAKAO KITA PAPUA, that supports Indigenous cacao production and engages in people-to-people trade (a kind of fair trade) to protect tropical forests and Indigenous livelihoods from large-scale corporate development. Both palm oil produced on these plantations and cacao grown by Indigenous farmers are exported to Japan, directly linking to our everyday lives. By visiting these sites, we will gain a deeper understanding of international relations—how the production of cacao and palm oil in Papua is connected to their consumption in Japan, and how the lives of Papuan people and Japanese people are intertwined through these global trade flows.

[Learning and Practicing International Cooperation]
The local enterprise, KAKAO KITA PAPUA, supports Indigenous cacao producers by purchasing cacao at fair prices, thereby sustaining their livelihoods. The company exports cacao to Japan, where it provides consumers with cacao products through people-to-people trade. We will visit KAKAO KITA PAPUA to learn about their initiatives in fostering mutual support between producers and consumers through cacao, and to reflect on the possibilities of international cooperation through our consumption.

After returning to Japan, we will run a café called “Cacao, Kita!” at the university festival (Sōhōsai), selling desserts and drinks made with cacao from KAKAO KITA PAPUA. This activity puts international cooperation into practice by contributing to the people-to-people trade business of KAKAO KITA PAPUA and supporting the livelihoods of Indigenous communities in Papua. All proceeds will be donated to the village cacao cooperative that hosted our homestay, helping them realize their dream of building an office.