Lessons of Life

The End of Life Care Association of Japan developed a programme called Lessons of Life in 2015 and as of 2025 over 80,000 people have participated with 260 certified trainers able to deliver the workshops.

“This programme is based on the lessons learned from working with people in hospice and end-of-life care who are experiencing suffering that is often difficult to resolve. From that experience we learned that even when people carry suffering, they can become more at peace when they notice their sources of support. It is deeply meaningful to feel understood, and this is something anyone can do. Even when one cannot be of practical help, noticing that there is someone who accepts you can allow a person to feel, “I am good enough.” Keiko Chida

Whilst developed before COVID, after the pandemic, like England, Japan had an increase in children not returning to school and poorer mental health and the programme has helped address some of this.

Feedback on Lessons of Life from Japan includes: –

“I have been bullied since I was a child. But I didn’t understand it at the time, but now I think that I have been able to do my best until now because my most important friend has always been by my side” (1st grade, junior high school student)

‘Now that I know that suffering is the gap between hope and reality, and how important pets, family and friends are, and how lucky I am to have people who support me, I will never say I don’t want a sister again, why was she born or she should die or disappear. But I will try to be kind to my sister because when I get frustrated, I tell her I hate her, even though I love her. But I’m glad I have a family (6th grade student)

I was wanted to disappear from this world as soon as possible, but after attending this class, I decided to live a little longer, I was taught many things, so when I have a hard time, I will remember this lesson” (5th grade student)

I met Keiko Chida from the End of Life Care Association of Japan in November 2023, we were part of a group attending a conference in Sendai and some workshops in the town of Matsuzaki organised by Professor Hirobumi Takenouchi. We were on a train together and she told me about Lessons of Life, and I was really taken by the concept.

We have so many primary schools and teachers who are nervous about bereavement awareness training for children, however this programme provides life skills which supports bereavement but doesn’t start there. The workshops support kindness, compassion and understanding. Keiko spoke further about Lessons of Life at the PHPCI Conference in Bern, 2024 and I wanted to find a way we could see if the programme would be acceptable to a UK context.

I asked Sue Merriman, an experienced youth worker and now CEO of Vysions the Brereton community charity in Staffordshire, to meet with Keiko online and see what she thought, and Sue could see straight away the value of such a programme given the many challenges so many young people are facing.

Keiko worked up a potential project and costings, whilst I spoke to other people who I thought might be interested. With thanks to the Sasakawa Foundation, Simon Betteridge, Elham Day and Sue Merriman we were able to find a way to take this forward.

We then found three willing volunteers for Keiko to train as facilitators, Simon stepped forward along with Charlotte Temple and Lisa Sant. They undertook ‘train the trainer’ training online over several sessions and then had some time to practice before delivering the programme for real, with Keiko observing.

After a half day refresher and walk through with Keiko, on Thursday 25th September, the first training session of Lessons of Life, ever taught outside of Japan and in English, was delivered to some of the adults involved in the Vysions charity, and then on the Saturday, in the Brereton community hub our volunteer facilitators delivered two more workshops to local young people aged from 10 to 17.

The first phase of bringing the programme to the UK was to deliver it from a straight translation from Japanese to English and then work with Keiko on any adjustments needed for cultural context.

Whilst it is tempting to make small amendments to words, every phrase, every element has been carefully thought about, constructed and tested and therefore the risk of amending is that some of the value is lost.

Everyone who took part knew that this was a first run through and therefore contributed their feedback on any changes they thought were important, which we will now work through.

The feedback from our young participants included…

“I think it was great, I learnt how to help people when they are upset…and how to make people feel understood better.”

‘“I learnt that there are two kinds of suffering. I also learnt that in between hope and reality is suffering, I also learnt how to support certain kinds of suffering”

“I think that this course will be amazing and helpful for children. My reasoning for this is because it helps people to understand the difference between helping and judging and the two different kinds of suffering”

“Very good message and a great workshop… It was very helpful, and I learnt something new that will help me through my suffering, very good, I enjoyed it, thank you”

“Today I have learnt all about different ways to cope with different stuff and this information is useful and is good to learn for many people no matter their age, it’s really useful”.

We are so grateful to everyone involved in making this happen including of course those young people who gave up time on a Saturday to spend time with us.

There is huge potential to improve the mental health and wellbeing of people of all ages, not just on issues around illness, death, dying and loss but all sorts of challenges that we face. Building these skills via our youth groups, sports clubs, schools and well… everywhere is a hugely exciting opportunity that we are seeking partners and funding for.

If you would like to find out more, please get in touch emmahodges@compassionate-communitiesuk.co.uk

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