KYOTO -- Kyoto International Student House here is facing serious financial difficulties as it looks to continue its half century-long role as a dormitory for foreign and Japanese students.

The aging facility's operator needs some 250 million yen to conduct required quake-proof renovation and rebuilding, but now has only 12 percent of the necessary funds. Foreign students living there are calling for donations, saying that the place is their only "home" in Kyoto.

The facility is one of the first dormitories built for foreign students in Japan. It was the brainchild of the late Dr. Werner Kohler of Switzerland, who represented the Swiss East Asia Mission in Japan and taught at Doshisha University's school of theology.

Nicknamed Haus der Begegnung (HdB) in German, or the House of Encounter, the dormitory opened its doors in 1965 with donations from Swiss and Japanese citizens. Back then the Cold War between the United States and former Soviet Union was at its height, and bitter memories of World War II were still fresh. But the founders tried to turn the dormitory into the embodiment of coexistence promoting mutual understanding among students from different geographical, ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

More than 1,000 students, both foreign and domestic, have since lived in the four-story building with a basement, but they sometimes clashed head-on over their ideological and cultural differences, according to people who stayed there.

Hiroshi Utsumi, 77, professor emeritus at Kyoto University who used to live in the dormitory shortly after it opened, recalled, "Students argued with each other over the Vietnam War, and an Indian student was criticized for refusing to clean the toilet, based on the caste system back home."

The youngsters overcame their differences by eating together. On Fridays twice a month, the students took turns to cook dinners and ate together -- a tradition called a "common meal" that has continued to this day. A student from an Islamic country, who once locked himself up in his room after he found out that some dormitory residents were sexual minorities, opened up to their different value system after having meals together with them.

Some 1,003 students from 81 countries and regions have lived in the dormitory, which now houses 18 foreign students from 12 countries and regions as well as 13 Japanese students. Natsumi Okawa, 21, a fourth-year student at Ritsumeikan University, says, "Now I first think about others before taking action." Stef van der Struijk, 24, who studies at a Kyoto University graduate school, describes the place as a "community, not just a place to live."

But the dormitory's financial status has deteriorated over the years. The main source of income was the rent from an annex that accommodated researchers for short-term stays, but part of the building became unusable because some walls suffered cracks after the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995. The Swiss mission subsequently withdrew from the management in 1999. Moreover, a quake-resistance test conducted in 2013 found out that the main building requires reinforcement, and the annex must be rebuilt. The public interest foundation running the facility has only 30 million yen in its reserve funds, and donations collected so far total just 14 million yen.

Professor Utsumi, who chairs the foundation, is calling for donations so that the international house will be able to continue its operations for another 50 years. "Intolerance is now spreading across the world, and confrontations are everywhere. The importance of mutual understanding, the ideal promoted by the dormitory, is ever growing," said Utsumi.

For donations or inquiries, call the Kyoto International Student House at 075-771-3648.

(By Yoko Minami, Kyoto Bureau)