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Soka Gakkai President Minoru Harada’s statement, titled “Creating a Wave of Change Toward a Century Without War,” is now available in English. In the statement, originally issued in Japanese on August 1, 2025, to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, President Harada writes: “We must deepen our commitment to peace by making an explicit vow to renounce war, grounded in the conviction that no one on this planet should ever have to endure its horrors.”  

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 Toki, 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.

On August 23, Soka Gakkai President Minoru Harada delivered the 34th ISTAC World Professorial Lecture (IWPL) at the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation of the International Islamic University Malaysia (ISTAC-IIUM) in Kuala Lumpur. In his lecture titled “Insights into Human Solidarity: Daisaku Ikeda’s Perspectives on the True Aspect of Life and Humanity,” President Harada explored how President Daisaku Ikeda dedicated himself to fostering global human solidarity based on the Buddhist perspective on the eternity of life and how Islam’s core values resonate with the philosophy of Nichiren Buddhism. 

Associate Professor Dr. Amilah Awang Abdul Rahman from IIUM gave a lecture on the “Islamic Perspective on Human Solidarity.” She described human solidarity as being much more than just standing together and said that it means feeling others’ pain and carrying their burden. IIUM rector, professor emeritus Datuk Dr. Osman Bakar, sent a message expressing his hopes for further collaboration between IIUM and the Soka Gakkai.  

The event was attended by some 250 people, including diplomats, scholars, university students and Soka Gakkai Malaysia members, and some 475 people joined online.

From August 14 to 17, some 180 Soka Gakkai members from India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand participated in a training course held in Seoul and on Jeju Island in South Korea. Soka Gakkai President Minoru Harada and SGI General Director Yoshiki Tanigawa also attended. The event featured small group discussions, Buddhist study sessions and activity reports from each country. Training course participants also joined a Korea SGI (KSGI) Headquarters Leaders Meeting held at the KSGI Ikeda Memorial Hall in Seoul and broadcast live to 367 venues across the country, with some 50,000 members participating onsite and online.

On August 10, a general meeting was held at the SGI-South Africa (SGI-SA) National Centre in Johannesburg. At the meeting, new leadership appointments were announced, including Anthony George as chapter leader and Kyoko Morgan as vice chapter leader. The meeting was also attended by members from Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia and Togo.

On August 3, Soka Gakkai members in Madagascar held a general meeting in Antananarivo, the capital city. The meeting commemorated the 20th anniversary of establishment of a chapter in Madagascar. At the meeting, new leadership appointments were announced, including Anja Navalona Raholivelo as chapter leader. Members from the neighboring island nations of Mauritius and the Seychelles also attended.

On July 23, Bharat Soka Gakkai (BSG) held its fifth Women’s Symposium at the Bal Gandharva Rang Mandir Auditorium in Mumbai, India, with the theme “Women Who Believe Are the Women Who Build.” The event brought together some 650 BSG members and featured a panel discussion. Panelists were Nandita Das, an actor, filmmaker and social advocate, Chetna Gala Sinha, founder of the Mann Deshi Bank and the Mann Deshi Foundation, Minakshi Achan, a marketing communications expert, and Anjana Sharma, professor and head of the Department of English at the University of Delhi. The panelists discussed what belief has meant in their lives, covering topics such as authenticity, the power of women’s solidarity, the courage to use your voice and the power of education to develop self-worth.