🗺Akiko, self introduction

AkikoFrid Byrå is non-partisan and collaborates with people who care that the Earth and all living things become healthier in every way. We all are – Part of the Earth ☺️

I grew up with my grandparents in Takasaki, Gunma prefecture, in the middle part of Honshu, Japan. Grandfather started to teach Judo after he served as a prison-guard for many years, before and during the war-time in Japan. He established a Judo gym and a bone-setting clinic, which nowadays called as Judo-therapy. My father took over the Judo gym and the clinic, and now my brother and his wife continue the family path.

I was not attracted to the school system to put the grades on people. Compare people with the grades. And I saw many students didn’t have time to play because they needed to study even after school in order to get a higher grade. I was not into the competition either. So I decided to challenge that by not going to get education after the high school. I wanted to see if I can live a life I want without having educations and job careers. No titles in front of my name.

When I was 19, I started to work, after one year of a cooking school education. My first job was to sell clothes to young people in a department store. After working as the clothes seller for about 5 years in my home town, I moved to Tokyo, when I was 24. First got a job for an American cosmetic company in Roppongi, and then for a foreign fashion models agency in Shibuya. I got married to a Swedish man, who I met in Tokyo.

Moved to Osby in the south Sweden in the early spring of 1993. After living together for 10 years, he decided to go into a Buddhist monk way. So he moved to Japan. I decided to stay in Sweden, to see what will happen here without having family and long-time friends around.

Lots of things have happened since then 🙂

Read on below…

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In Sweden…

First I published a small essay book in Japan. Sweden kara Konnichiwa 1996. It was about my life in Sweden.

Then a co-translated book was published in Japan. Waterless Mountain 1998. It is a story about a Navaho boy, who becomes a medicine man.

Contributed articles in two books about GMO. Issues around GMO foodstuffs 2000, Attack caused by GMO rice 2001.

I worked for an international environmental organisation Greenpeace.

The first assignment was to check the situation around GMO-rice in Japan, back in 1999, since then I did some field research on GMO-papaya, GMO-rice, GMO-canola contamination, GMO-food labelling in Japan, and also served as GMO-issue campaigner in Japan and in Sweden.

During my Greenpeace time, I went to China and joined a tour, The Yunnan experience in 2004. Co-wrote a canola-report in 2005.

In 2012, Greenpeace made a short film about the reality of the GMO production called, Growing Doubt, and I translated the text into Japanese. I left the Greenpeace GMO campaigner position in 2013, after that, I got an assignment from Japan the late 2015, to translate a report, Twenty Years of Failure – Why GM crops have failed to deliver on their promises, into Japanese.
Twenty Years of Failure
遺伝子組み換え失敗の20年

Between February 2008 and February 2016, I served as the administrator for a network Hej då GMO in Sweden and still taking care of the Twitter account.

I started a small company in August 2012, in order to be more responsible and consistent with my will to be a psychologically and physically stable person to live on Earth with other livingthings in harmonious way. This is the challenge of my life.

Since 2012, I am working for the GMO-free Europe Conference, served as a conference staff, and also as the webmaster. Updating the news page, as well as taking care of the Twitter account. The last conference was in 2018, and our work continues.

I have joined to a national network for freelancers who are also transitioners, called Omställningsbyrån.

I have studied at a folk high school about how we could possibly survive in this changing Earth, without destroying our home planet, Mother Earth 🙂 That education gave me wider perspective and many possibilities in my life.

Lastly, I got a housemate and 4 cats since 2009, and we are trying to live in harmony, and it is challenging. Haha.