KARAMOSIA is a coined word by KARAIMO and ASIA. We work on international interchange of Japanese countryside through agriculture, environment and local activation. Our chief activity is the two-weeks-long homestay programme, called KARAIMO KORYU, which you stay and get involved in Japanese family in Kagoshima and Miyazaki prefecture.

In south Kyushu, the southernmost edge of Japanese mainland, we call a sweet potato KARAIMO in a local dialect. 300 years ago, KARAIMO was introduced into Kagoshima, crossed a route of the sea from South America. Since taking root in Kagoshima, KARAIMO has brought a big influence to South Kyushu like feeding the region, becoming big industry, and KARAIMO spread throughout Japan and onto Korea.

South Kyushu (Satsuma) is the historical place of overseas interchange such as Japanese envoil to the Tang Dynasty, a gun/Christianity transmission, western trade, illegal import, the Meiji Restoration.
Nowaday, depopulation, aging advances is a big problem in the Japanese countryside. People have given up farming and gone to the big cities with high economic growth, and we have met serious crisis of extinction of our life and culture. To defeat this situation, we decided not to depend on central government from the southernmost edge, we started giving eyes to the world on the basis of our interchange history, and were convinced that overseas interchange might regenerate culture and the economy that rose for new vitality.
In that way, in 1982, we invited international students living in Japan to our primitive farmhouses for 2 weeks and exchange through our everyday life. This is the start of our chief activitiy which is called KARAIMO KORYU exchange programme.

This opportunity brought the true international understanding among the host family and exchange students. They shared time and got involved in cultures while living and working together, then those experience became unforgettable memories. Many of them still continue to keep in touch with each other as a family member who apart in the world. The hostfamily could regain confidence, pride and a dream in our late area of development. And this grass-roots intercultual exchange programme set a root in Kagoshima.
The chain of this exchange programme spread to about 60 cities and towns in Kagoshima and Miyazaki prefecture, and about 4000 overseas students from 78 countries/areas have participated in this program.

Furthermore, the wave of this interchange spread to Asian countryside, and developed to KARAMOSIA movement which connect South Kyushu to Asian region directry. By KARAMOSIA KORYU, host family and the youth of South Kyushu visits Asian farm villages, and experience their daily life and exchange between people living in rural area of the same Asia.

1981 summer	Exchange Center of the South was organized
1982 spring	the 1st Karaimo Koryu spring homestay programme took place
1985 fall	started Karamosia Koryu homestay programme at the villadge in Thailand
1985 fall	Aisa Youth Convention was held
1986 summer	the 1st Karaimo Koryu summer homestay programme took place
	startd Karamosia Youth Exchange Programme supported by MBC
1987 spring	Karaimo Koryu Foundation was established
1988 spring	started Karamosia Academy
1990 summer	Area Internationalization Symposium took place
1991 spring	plot the project of "Karamosia villadge Asia Pacific Intercultual Center" with Kagoshima Prefecture Government
1994 spring	Asia Pacific Intercultual Center -Karamosia Villadge- was open in Kamitakakuma-cho, Kanoyashi, Kagoshima
1997 spring	participated in a JICA project by Indonesian poor measures
1997 summer	cooperated to UNDP project of Inle lake basin environmental preservation in Myanmar
1998 spring	cooperated to UNDCP project of drug destruction
	developed to Karamosia Foundation
1998 summer	the project of Inle lake basen symbiosis project in Myanmar has started
1998 fall	Aisa Africa symbiosis convention was held
	Tanzanian Prime Ministar Sumaye visited Kagoshima
1999 summer	Karamosia Yangon office was established
	Karamosia training center in Myanmar was established
1999 fall	start the project of drug destruction in Wa district in Myanmar
2000 spring	srart forest program for prevention of global warming in Myanmar
2003 fall	relinquish all of the project in Myanmer to earth civils meeting
2005 summer	Participants of Karaimo Koryu counted 4,000 people from 78 countries/areas