�@

Here are our members' essays on our activities.
We'll add more essays one by one.
Send us any comments, questions (and grammar mistakes!!) to the "E-mail us " page.


Essay by Rui
"The athletic meet in Akagi reformatory" ......Sep 20, 1997

Under the clear sky, as if heaven hid all the clouds for the very day, the athletic meet of Akagi reformatory in Gunma was held. The field had been prepared carefully by the teachers and the boys. Numerous people, members of the organization of reformative protection, the boys' families and us, BBS, thronged there.

Their field overflew with the heat of boys which blew dark clouds (number 20th typhoon) off easily ; maybe the tyfoon were drawn by bad action of BBS members, though....(just a kind of Japanese superstition).

We rememberd the excited and thrilled feeling that we had felt in the field day of our own elementary school or high school. But there was a little difference ; nicer BGM for an athletic meet. Each BGM suitable for every game brought impression to us. A sensitive girl filled her eyes with tears. I felt as if the meet started at 9 a.m. finished in a moment. I'm sure It wasn't only me who wanted a little longer to steep self in the good childhood. At the end I wondered how the boys felt about us BBS who were dancing the folk dance very awkwardly. But I couldn't ask them, because I feared the answer........


Essay by Rui
"The 50th anniversary of BBS Movement" ......Sep 13-14, 1997

The heat of late summer had passed away and the autumn seasonal rain front came. The sky was overspread with gray clouds.

It was the day everyone was waiting for, the 50th anniversary of our BBS movement. Long before the ceremony's opening, there was already a growing excitement in the hall. It seemed as though the seasonal rain front had escaped their memory. Members who had shared some of their time as fellow BBS members, spread all over Japan, were grad to meet again. They were exchanging reminiscences of the good old days.

As time was pressing for the opening ceremony, the atmosphere of the hall changed solemnly. It was because the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess were going to appear in the hall. I expected the Crown Princess would draw many people's attention. She was dressed in white and weared a white bonnet. Perhaps she selected clothes suitable for "BBS".

The ceremony was making steady progress. There was something of a 'homely' but 'solemnity' atmosphere in the hall.

A young female member presented a 'case' that she took charge of. At that time, we were thrown into an ecstasy by her speech. I was so glad that the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess looked deeply interested in her speech.


The ceremony was over and we had our own study session next day, and some other members presented their cases. I thought "I will keep them for future reference!". Through the reports I got to know every member was feeling difficulties in the activity and worrying how to manage. I felt we have to work together for ourselves !








Essay by Tama
"Visiting a Reformatory" ......Jul 30, 1997

As 5 new members joined this month seeing articles of a magazine "FromA" and a public information paper for Saitama prefecture citizen, we hurriedly planned visiting a reformatory for training of the newcomers.

The reformatory we visited this time was in the farms area in Ibaragi prefecture. As soon as we got there, one of the new members shouted "Oh my god, what a beautiful building!! It's much cleaner than my college!!". It really was, a white building like we see in the TV drama.

As we got inside, we were led to a kind of conference room and an instructor of the reformatory told us about the life in the reformatory and the real state of boys for an hour and a half.

What he told us was; the boys are about 15-20 years old at the time of entering and take 1 and a half year to be discharged, a comparatively long-term reformatory. And it lays stress on making them obtain licenses and giving vocational education, both of which are directly connected with the life after they're discharged. To our surprise, the boys obtain at least 4 licenses untill getting out. The licenses which can be obtained in this reformatory are, special drivers license (of large cars and small ones), welding, electric (low voltage) dealing, explosive dealing etc, reaches a total of about 27. And the instructor said the boys had a great passion for obtaining them and the passing rate was even higher than that of ordinary people or high school students. Besides, some boys came from other reformatories to obtain the licenses and others put off the discharge to get some license.

And they had various educational events of four seasons; soccer and sumo event in spring, swimming and volleyball in summer, field day , softball and harvesting festival in autumn, drama festival, Christmas party and coming-of-age in winter.


Next we had a question time. Here's the summary;

BBS: "I was surprised this reformatory wasn't surrounded with a wall. "
Ins: "Not all the reformatories are. Most people misunderstand that all are inside the barbed wire entanglements. We grow various crops in the field and to go there, boys pass between the private houses. Of course with us, though. No boy tries to run away. "

BBS: "How many boys are in here now? "
Ins: "131 boys"
BBS: "Can they never go out except when they're discharged? "
Ins: "Well, for example at the time of funeral they can go out temporarily. It really has to be a special occasion. "
BBS: "I've heard that you have some field trip and volunteer work (caring elderly people at old people's homes and cleaning in the neighbors). Do all the boys participate in these works?"
Ins: "No, only boys who are going to be discharged soon, because the purpose of these activities is to make it easy for them to live their after-discharge life smoothly. "

After the question time, they showed us around the reformatory. The classroom with personal computers, bathing room, gymnasium.... but the most impressive was the dining room. There was a CD player beside the entrance of it and were the CDs of Yoshi Ikuzo (a middle-aged popular ballads singer), ZARD, Maki Oguro and so on. I imagined boys eating while listening to these music.....a lovely sight, huh?

As this visit was hurriedly planned, we couldn't talk to the boys as we always did when we visited a reformatory. But this was the first time we could look around a reformatory and it was very interesting. The new members surely would have satisfied too. They said their image of "reformatory" changed a lot.


And thanks a lot for the instructors, who gave us this great experience!!!!