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The Asian Rural Institute (ARI) is a training center for Rural Leaders . Founded in 1973 by Rev. Dr. Toshihiro Takami the aim of the program is to invite and train local grassroots leaders to more effectively serve in their communities as they work for the poor, the hungry, and the marginalized. Each year from April to December we bring together about 30 leaders from countries primarily in Asia, Africa, and the Pacific to take part in our Rural Leaders Training Program. The training focuses on sustainable agriculture through integrated organic farming techniques, community building, and leadership. It is community based and hands-on learning is emphasized in all areas. Working together we grow and share our own food. At the heart of the program is the concept of 'Foodlife' - a term designed to recognize and value the interdependency between life and the food that sustains all life. |
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ARI Mission Statement
The mission of the Asian Rural Institute is to build an environmentally healthy, just and peaceful world, in which each person can live to his or her fullest potential.
This mission is rooted in the love of Jesus Christ.
To carry out this mission, we nurture and train rural leaders for a life of sharing. Leaders, both women and men, who live and work in grassroots rural communities primarily in Asia, Africa and the Pacific, form a community of learning each year together with staff and other residents.
Through community-based learning we study the best ways for rural people to share and enhance resources and abilities for the common good.
We present a challenge to ourselves and to the whole world in our approach to food and life.
Motto: "That We May Live Together."
The Asian Rural Institute is an astonishing place. People come here from all over the world, and settle down together to live and create a learning community for a year of sometimes wrenching personal growth. We work together to grow our own food: the grains, vegetables, livestock and fish that we cook and eat together in our dining hall. We work together to create learning and as our mission statement says "study the best ways for rural people to share and enhance resources and abilities for the common good.”
The people who come here each year to participate in the training course come from some of the most isolated, deprived, war-torn and desperate places on Earth. They come because they are motivated by a dream to serve their people; a dream of learning to build a better life with enough food, a strong, healthy family, a supportive community, and a voice in determining their own futures.
Nancy Molin
Former missionary to ARI – Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Non-traditional School
Who Takes Part?
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ARI recruits grassroots Rural Leaders, both women and men, who are living and working with their people in their rural communities. We seek out local leadership who have demonstrated through their actions their commitment to serve their people and act as conduits for positive change within their own communities. We place emphasis on reaching the most marginalized, poor, and oppressed peoples, especially women, tribal minorities, and those of low castes or so-called untouchables. We welcome those of any faith, race, class, or profession as long as they share ARI's vision and pledge to return home straight away to work together with their people. In the past we have trained clergy and church leaders, agricultural trainers, community and village leaders, staff of farmers’ cooperatives, NGO personnel, teachers, orphanage staff and many more. We make a special effort to recruit women and men in equal numbers. It is always the goal of ARI to have a 50/50 ratio of women and men; however, achieving this goal presents many challenges due to conservative and sometimes discriminatory policies of many societies. |
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Sustainable Agriculture We practice and teach methods of integrated organic farming that incorporate techniques of enriching the soil, cultivating crops, and rearing livestock naturally. In all areas we promote the use of materials and technology that are available locally in our participants’ communities, reducing dependency on outside inputs and leading toward greater self-sufficiency in food production. As a living model of the self sufficiency we teach, participants, staff, and volunteers work together to produce most of the food we eat, including rice, wheat, soybeans, and about 60 kinds of vegetables. We also raise a variety of livestock, such as chickens, pigs, cows, fish and ducks all on our 6 hectares (15 acres) of land.
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Servant Leadership A truly effective leader is one who serves, one who works at the level of the people, and lives a life that is an example and an inspiration to empower all people to reach their highest potential.
“I learned that servant leadership is the best way to change a society. I personally experienced this when I started to work with my people. ARI is the place where I found theology in action.”
Laksiri Peiris, 1995 ARI Graduate - Sri Lanka |
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Community development A healthy community is one in which all members have a voice. Our training facilitates the discovery and utilization of the strengths and talents inherent in all of us; organizing community through full participation in decision making, in contribution of abilities, and in access to resources.
Community building at ARI is learned through the process of bringing people together each year from vastly different cultures and life experiences to form a cohesive and cooperative group. Community life in its most basic form can be seen daily at the tables in the dining hall, where everyone comes together three times a day to enjoy meals from food that we have all worked to prepare from seed to serving dish. |
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“Sharing Food is Sharing Life” Rev. Dr. Takami, Founder of ARI
With representatives from over the world, it is not always easy to live within such diversity. Misunderstandings take place and arguments happen. But it is by working through these difficulties and tough times that participants gain valuable skills and insights about how to organize their home communities to overcome obstacles and move forward together. And there is always one central point to hold us together – food. Quite simply, if we don’t work we don’t eat.
Each day is an opportunity to practice how to live according to our motto: That We May Live Together |
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How do we teach?
Community-based traing Those who take part in ARI training are leaders in their communities. Each of these leaders brings with them a wealth of knowledge and experience. Therefore learning is not one way, but multidirectional, with participants and staff serving both as teachers and learners. In the context of community all aspects of life together become part of the learning experience. Throughout the training we build a multicultural, multi-faith community, in which everyone actively participates. Teaching, learning and growth are experienced together as we share in our work and exchange our ideas and values. |
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'Learning by Doing' A significant part of the training lies in the daily labor required to maintain a self-sufficient farm. Participants manage their own fields, care for livestock, cook and serve the foods they have raised. These seemingly simple daily activities carried out in community give many opportunities for practical experience in agriculture, leadership, communication and cooperation.
“When I’m home, if I look like I don’t know how to do something, someone jumps in and does it. Here I get to keep trying till I figure it out and then I remember how.” Patrick Asumana – 2008 ARI Graduate - Liberia
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'Foodlife' Foodlife is a special word coined by ARI founder Rev. Dr. Toshihiro Takami. It represents the inseparable connection between food and life. It is a joyful experience when community members produce food through their own labor and then gather together around the table to share meals prepared from their own harvest. At every meal we experience the blessings of God and the heart of the community.
“Let us build a world where human life and the food to sustain it have significant value.” Takami sensei – Founder of ARI |
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Foodlife Work
All the ARI community takes part in “foodlife work,” the daily chores required to maintain a farm. ARI Foodlife Work is about understanding the connection between life and the food that sustains life. This daily farm work allows us to participate closely in the whole cycle of food production and consumption; including, sowing seeds, raising both crops and livestock, harvesting & butchering, cooking, eating together as a community, washing the dishes and using the leftovers for compost or animal feed. By consciously reflecting on this cycle and the role that food plays in our lives we rediscover the true value of food. We recognize the importance of food produced sustainably, the dignity of labor and the necessity of food self-sufficiency for the self-reliance of people. Through our combined efforts we produce most of the food consumed at ARI.
Historical Notes
ARI was established in its present location in 1973 based on the Southeast Asia Christian Rural Leaders Training Course at Tsurukawa Rural Institute in Machida, Tokyo. It started as an international organization training leaders who engage in rural development in developing countries, to satisfy the demand for training by Christian churches and groups that had already taken part in rural development in Southeast Asian countries. The foundation was supported by Japanese, European and American Christian churches and other groups. Since 1996, ARI has also accepted Japanese participants who intend to serve rural communities in the future – either in Japan or worldwide
founder Toshihiro Takami biography
