Ryo Uchida and Yoshinari Kajishita, both from HU’s Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation (currently the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences), played a central role in founding Mother Land Lanka (MLL) — a non-profit organization that works to build peace through the cultivation of indigenous herbal plants in the northern province, the main battlefield of the civil war in Sri Lanka.

Mother Land Lanka is currently engaged in the “Home Garden Project” in the Vavuniya District with the support of Albion Co., Ltd. — a Japanese cosmetics distributor and manufacturer. This project provides a “place” for Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim, and other people with different ethnicity and religion to work together and coexist beyond the ethnic and religious boundaries through taking part in the activity of cultivating traditional indigenous herbal plants of the country.

“To build sustainable peace, we need to provide short-term and long-term projects: Promoting the regional industry and creating stable working opportunities are urgent for local people. I realized that it is necessary to create a foundation that can gather people who have the same spirit for peace and build a sustainable network with international and domestic partners,” said Uchida.