SGI and Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Co-Organize Symposium on Nuclear Abolition

On August 23 and 24, the SGI (Soka Gakkai International) together with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF) organized the Choose Hope Symposium at the International Conference Center Hiroshima. The symposium was held to honor the legacies of David Krieger, one of the founders of NAPF who also served as its president, and President Daisaku Ikeda. The two coauthored the dialogue Choose Hope: Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age.

On August 23, Soka Gakkai members from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, representatives of the SGI, NAPF and other organizations came together for a workshop. NAPF President Ivana Nikolić Hughes stated in her speech that the symposium was an opportunity to translate the resolve for nuclear abolition into concrete action while “choosing hope no matter how difficult the situation.” Participants discussed topics highlighted in the March 2025 Choose Hope Symposium Declaration including challenging the narrative of security based on deterrence, and the intersection between the environmental crisis and nuclear activism and the role of youth. At the end of each discussion, participants shared points that could contribute to an action plan toward a nuclear-weapon-free world.

The second day of the symposium was a public event titled “Choose Hope in Hiroshima: Renewing Our Commitment for a Future Without Nuclear Weapons.” The event was supported by Mayors for Peace, the Japan Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, and the UNITAR Association. A video titled “Choose Hope—David Krieger and Daisaku Ikeda” was screened, highlighting themes from their dialogue. The keynote address was given by Annie Jacobsen, investigative journalist and author of Nuclear War: A Scenario. She stated that the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are a reality that could still occur anywhere in the world today. She described eliminating the nuclear threat as a common goal and hope for humanity.

There were also two panel discussions. The first was moderated by Chie Sunada, director of the SGI Disarmament and Human Rights. Dr. Hughes and Ms. Jacobsen served as panelists along with NAPF Director of Policy and Advocacy Christian N. Ciobanu and Masako Tori, senior project manager and research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute in California, USA. They discussed pathways to nuclear abolition. The second panel was on what can be learnt from the past and building the future we want and was moderated by Luli van der Does, director of the Center for Peace at Hiroshima University. Panelists were: Sayaka Morii, Soka Gakkai member from Hiroshima; Hideo Asano, communications and media coordinator at the Japan Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons; Kenneth Chiu, NAPF communications and media coordinator, and NAPF intern, Valeriya Zherebtsova.

The event also featured a testimony by second-generation survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Mariko Higashino.