Activities on the Great East Japan Earthquake and aids for suffering areas：
Upcoming Projects and Direction (The NGO Collaboration Center for Hanshin Quake Rehabilitation)
We sincerely express our deepest condolences to the people of Tohoku and to the families and friends of the victims of the Great East Earthquake on March 11th. Our thoughts and prayers are with all those whose lives have been touched by this tragedy. We extend our heartfelt sympathy to all the victims and to the people who have been forced to evacuate as a result of the crisis at the Fukushima Nuclear power plant. The NGO Collaboration Center for Hanshin Quake Rehabilitation was founded by a citizens group who volunteered at the Hanshin-Awaji Quake disaster. The catastrophic Hanshin-Awaji quake, which occurred on January 17, 1995, measured a massive M7.3 and killed approximately 6,434 people. Learning from our volunteer experience in disaster assistance, our experience taught us important lessons of supporting each other, learning together, and standing together. Since 1995, we have been fielding our volunteer team into numerous disaster areas with this philosophy. Based on this philosophy, we have been supporting lives and livings for all the people who suffered as a result of disaster.
Our Upcoming Activities
- Aids for living at temporary dwelling houses
Going forward, our organization will focus on supporting victim’s lives to prevent them from isolation at their temporary dwelling houses. To be specific, we’ll keep up with their lives by dispatching foot spar volunteers and producing the “Makenai-zou”.
• Foot Spar Volunteering
“Foot Spar Volunteering” provides relaxation to the victims by soaking the feet in warm water and volunteers will face the person and rub hands and have a chat. Foot spar has been proven to be effective in improving the blood circulation and creating a relaxing atmosphere, which facilitates sleep. In addition, it also break down barriers, which helps us determine their worries and needs, which we call a “murmur”. By providing the foot spar at a temporary dwelling house and hearing their murmur, we can identify their problems at an early stage, act as their advocate, and help determine the path they need to take to rebuild their lives.
• Makenai-zou
Concurrently, we’ll continue developing the “Makenai-zou” project at temporary dwelling houses. We have been undertaking this project at shelters since the end of March. “Makenai-zou” comes from one word of “We’ll Never Give Up!” in Japanese word. It also could come from “zou”, the Japanese word for elephant, and “Makenai” which translates, “Never Give Up!”. We represent this philosophy with an elephant-shaped doll made out of hand towels, crafted by the people who were affected by Han-Shin Awaji Earthquake disaster. This keeps them busy, provides them with hope, and gives them a break from the mundane existence of shelter living. By crafting Makenai-zou, we are aiming people to find joy and hope to rebuild their lives. In addition, they find themselves contributing for others, and not only accepting help from others. Moreover, they will receive 100 JPY, which is $1.30 USD (as of 8/13/2011) per piece and use this as a part of their saving for their needs.
*Related to the isolation issue at temporary dwelling houses, it is very important that we carefully consider the next step, moving the victims to revival residences and to permanent residence. After Hanshing-Awaji Earthquake disaster, many of those moving into the reinforced-concrete high-rise apartment expressed that they preferred living in temporary dwellings because they felt isolated in an environment where they cannot hear any noise from their neighbors due to the thick, strongly-buit concrete walls. Of course, this disaster may be different, but it is critically important that we focus not only on the community moving together, as whole, into the temporary dwelling houses and revival-houses, but we also need to anticipate potential issues, improve the resident autonomy at temporary dwelling houses and establish the living environment so they feel safe. To accelerate the process, we have started the temporary disaster assistance committee as part of “Nationwide Network Connected by Earthquake”. We welcome everyone to participate in this.
- Aids for Fukushima
Now we need to pay an attention to people affected in Fukushima. Their problems are getting longer time and more serious. Because of the nuclear power plant accident, people from Fukushima have no way of finding their way home anytime soon, all of them are scattered around to different shelters, and they cannot communicate with each other. We will pay careful attention to them to prevent from isolation and the help build a network for them through powdered milk donation campaign and the Makenai-zou project.
We’ve been operating the “Let’s deliver powdered milk to children project” since 3/19, in which we ask for a donation for the allergy proof powdered milk and deliver them to the shelters and facilities where needed. Due to the fact that many people with babies were moving out of the shelters earlier than anticipated, and project seems to have almost completed its goal, and we planned to cease this project. But upon recent review, we will continue this activity and plan to develop this project for connecting people who evacuated from Fukushima.
- “Let’s send bamboo charcoal” campaign – Relaying aids from suffering area to suffering area.
As our third campaign, we began “Let’s send bamboo charcoal”, in which we’ll deliver bamboo charcoal from Sayou-cho, Hyogo prefecture, which was heavily affected by flooding, to East Japan After the Sayo-cho flooding disaster, we raise the donation of bamboo charcoals with the message of “Bring the charcoals to suffering area!” from nationwide. Charcoals are said very effective removing the bad smells and keeping the moisture. At that time, we have raised the total of 15 tons of charcoals nationwide and put them underneath of the flooded floor. We were greatly appreciated from everyone. This time as a return, from Sayo-cho to East Japan we’ll deliver bamboo charcoals. Well, of course, we welcome from everywhere. Charcoals will deliver the message of “Cheer up! You’re not alone” along with itself. Thank you for your continuous aids and support and please be a part of this together with us.
The NGO Collaboration Center for Hanshin Quake Rehabilitation
TEL: +81-(0)78-574-0701
E-mail：ngo@pure.ne.jp
http://tohoku-pacific-eq.seesaa.net/
16/08/2011