Side By Side (2014)

The Loess Plateau that stretches across northern China is choked up with yellow soil, but was once covered in thick forest. A Japanese has spent 26 years planting trees and bringing back those forests. Since 1992, 70-year-old Kunio Takami has raised donations from Japanese citizens and organizations to plant trees with the local residents of Datong. He overcame painful local history of the Sino-Japanese war to help bring prosperity to poor villages. Discover his efforts and this ongoing project.

In Uganda's long civil war over 30,000 children were abducted and forced to fight. Returning to civilian life is fraught with difficulty but Terra Renaissance helps former child soldiers reintegrate. One lives apart from her children to focus on a tailoring course. She's determined to master new skills and regain a life with her children. Another now protects child refugees from South Sudan; he understands their emotional scars. Discover how former child soldiers are rebuilding social bonds.

The civil war in Syria has driven 6 million refugees from their homeland. Over 650,000 have relocated to neighboring Jordan, majorly impacting the lives of local citizens. Nippon International Cooperation for Community Development (NICCO) has worked in Jordan for nearly 30 years, providing support to both refugees and poor Jordanians through projects promoting better employment chances and personal income. It also tackles emotional care for children scarred by war and poverty. "It's the hard work of our local staff members that allows us to work side by side with Syrians and Jordanians," says Yuiko Isoda, who heads NICCO's Jordan office. Meanwhile, 8 years after the beginning of the war, Isoda is facing a shrinking budget. She's begun working with local NGOs to share skills, ensuring that support for those who need it remains in place.

Though Cambodia's animation scene is still in its infancy, one homegrown studio is making a name for itself by combining cartoons with social education. Japanese animator Hidetaka Nakamura works with local staff to create public service content that tackles environmental issues, traffic problems, and other social themes. He also runs anime workshops for local elementary school students. Under the regime of Pol Pot, artistic expression was not permitted, and many local creatives were executed. But now Nakamura and his team are working hard to incubate what they see as a new age of cultural vitality. Follow a small studio striving to make a big difference in Cambodia.

Seven Spirit is an NPO in downtown Cebu, the 2nd largest city in the Philippines. It offers free music lessons to children aged 8-18 and has its own orchestra, which is invited to perform at festivals. It was set up by Hiroaki Tanaka, from Japan, as a way to give children on the street a talent to which they can dedicate themselves. Older kids can audition for university scholarships and the chance to go on to higher education. Discover how music is shaping a new future at Seven Spirit.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific ring of fire, under constant threat of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and tsunami. One Japanese NPO is helping local community radio to spread information during disasters and recovery, as well as promote disaster awareness. FMYY is a Kobe community radio station set up after the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake. It provides detailed information that TV can't broadcast, alongside community events to help revitalize the city. Now that experience is being used to work with community radio in Indonesia, setting up new stations and helping with programming. "Both our countries are at risk of natural disasters. We want to share information and help save and support the lives of survivors." Discover how radio is supporting disaster survivors in Indonesia.

The rice terrace clusters of Ifugao, passed down from generation to generation for 2 millennia, are a UNESCO World Heritage Site of which the people of the Philippines are truly proud. But due to the country's rapid modernization, the working population, particularly the young generation, has been moving away from the countryside into the cities. As a result, the terraces are gradually being desolated and the villages around them are in decline.

Papua New Guinea is an island nation spread across a vast archipelago in Oceania. In the north-eastern town of Rabaul, a training center is teaching organic farming to young people from all over the country. The Organization for Industrial, Spiritual and Cultural Advancement (OISCA) focuses on organic techniques that enable poor farmers to use everyday plants and manure for compost, instead of paying for fertilizer or agrichemicals. Planting a variety of crops not only allows the soil to remain healthy, but also provides a more diverse food supply. OISCA's main focus is growing rice, which has begun to supplant the long-harvested taro root. Rice provides more nutrition, making it more efficient to grow and better for locals' health.

Japanese NPO Asian Development with the Disabled Persons (ADDP) uses sport to encourage social integration and independence among disabled people in Laos. Member Hiroyuki Hane trains candidates for Laos' Paralympic team. The team are all visually impaired and hope to represent their country as short-distance runners in international competition. Laos has no history of disabled sport so Hane, whose left arm is disabled, is sharing all his knowledge of track athletics in the hopes of establishing an independent, nationwide interest. This summer the Paralympic team will take part in a track and field contest in Osaka Prefecture. How will Hane's trainees do?

In Cambodia, only 20% of students advance to junior high. To inspire kids to learn, college teacher Shuji Matsuoka and his Cambodian students have developed original teaching materials. It's a board game played on a map of Cambodia, teaching geography, spelling, and arithmetic through photos and simple text. Even the Cambodian government has recognized its value as a teaching tool. Matsuoka was inspired by Cambodian Aki Ra, a former child soldier who now clears landmines as a volunteer.

During the 1990's, China's Yunnan Province was the target of many natural resource exploitation campaigns that devastated the land. Today, we follow Mr. Mamoru Taguchi, a coffee shop owner in Tokyo, and Mr. Guo Jun, a former mining manager from Inner Mongolia, on their decade-long journey to revitalize the region through the farming and sale of coffee.