Former school truants plant rice for Laotian students

Asian Economic News, May 29, 2000

TOKYO, May 23 Kyodo

Some 150 former school truants now studying at an alternative school in Tokyo will visit a rice paddy this week in Nagano Prefecture to take part in a two-day rice-planting program in which harvest proceeds will be sent to Laos, school officials said Tuesday.

The second-year senior high school students of Tokyo Kokusai Gakuen, based in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward, will plant rice seedlings Thursday and Friday in the northern Nagano Prefecture village of Nakajo. They will return in August for weeding and again in late September for the harvest, the officials said.

The officials said the project is aimed at ''exposing many students to agricultural work and increasing their opportunities to interact with nature.''

''We want them to broaden their horizons and perspective in life through experiencing nature,'' one official said.

Of the school's 630 students, more than 70% had previously been absent from school from between one and nine years.

The officials said each student, under the instruction of a farming family, will plant 10 square meters of seedlings in the village's ''tanada'' terraced rice fields.

They plan to sell the harvest during the school's autumn bazaar and allocate the proceeds to its Laos campaign.

The campaign, which has been running for five years, is aimed at building elementary schools for Laotians in need of educational facilities.