On Sunday 24th June 2018 at Kanagawa Citizens’ Center in Yokohama, Japan, Diamonds for Peace (DFP) held the event “The journey toward making the world’s first fair-mined diamond into a reality” for the purposes of sharing our updates and plans.
On the summary day, people who were interested in DFP’s activities were gathered. The topics they were interested in varied according to participants. For example: the responsible supply chain of jewelry, the activities in African countries, and other related issues.
The event started with DFP’s organizational profile and self-introduction by the staffs and the participants. DFP’s Director General made a presentation about diamond related issues, the findings in Liberia, our plans, and the future prospects. Another DFP’s staff presented about the awareness raising activities in Japan. We released the Japanese translations “Blood Diamond: Corruption and Torture in Angola” authored by Rafael Marques des Morais, “Diamond White Paper” in Japanese which is a summary of the findings from the surveys to find out the level of awareness of diamond related issues by consumers and diamond retailers mainly in Japan, and other sensitization activities. We also encouraged the participants to become DFP’s supporters and volunteers.
During the Q&A session, participants showed considerable interests and we had lively discussions. They asked about details of the supply chain of diamond, the path that the artisanal diggers/miners go through for self-reliance, the differences in perception of diamond related issues between people in Japan and those in Western countries and so on.
Diamonds for Peace proposes that the artisanal diamond diggers and miners do a side business to break the cycle of dependence on the exploitative investors. We believe bee keeping will provide a good, stable and efficient income to them. We brought a few bottles of honey made in Liberia as sample and also provided honey drink. Participants tasted and enjoyed it!
The first edition of DFP’s newsletter “The Journey”, which was just printed out, was also distributed to every participant.
We had a small after party. Participants and staffs had a good time for networking.
Next DFP’s event will be held in November. Details will be found on the website and Facebook page. Please check it out!
DFP’s Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/diamondsforpeace/
You can read the newsletter “The Journey” on the page below:
http://diamondsforpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/DFP_The-Journey_1.pdf