2011.11.07 18:31
Seminar on Self-supporting Reconstruction: "Toward the Light" (29 October, Ichinoseki City Kawasaki Community Center)
The seminar on self-supporting reconstruction: "Toward the Light", held on 29 October, included victims from Rikuzentakata, Ofunato, Kessenuma, and Ishinomaki, with 90 people from Miyagi and Iwate Preferctures taking part and exchanging opinions.
Here are some of the opinions that were exchanged during the panel discussion.
Although you have to keep a fondness of the place, at the same time it is necessary to cut off any lingering regret and stay strong.
The loss of family is very hard, and it is still not possible for me to fully accept the loss. However it is nature that has taken away my family. People helped each other, and I am grateful to have been saved. Although I have yet to find closure to my feelings of despair, I am concentrating on thinking about what I can do to help the people who are alive today.
In Kessenuma city alone there are 7000 people in need of jobs. Recovery of the area is not possible without these jobs, and unless companies can be set up in the area employment won't be created. Therefore we cannot stop hoping for support by industries and companies.
It is very frustrating that recovery is not progressing due to legal problems (observing the Building Standards Act), and problems between government departments in deciding who is responsible for what part in clearing the rubble and waste. These problems result in a bottle-neck, hindering the self-help recovery effort.
With regard to jobs, I accept that it is necessary to change ones type of job in order to work and have an income. I need some kind of support from the government in this kind of job seeking activity.
Because we local companies are the lifeline for local areas, we must carry on in these areas and therefore we share our fate with the local areas. We want others to understand that what we, the local companies are up against, are not major competitor companies with annual turnovers of over 5 billion yen, but rather the earthquake disaster.
We are trying to seek out our role in the local area and to take it on with responsibility. I think this is a necessary way of thinking in order to be independent.
I organize a Tea Club with temporary housing residents. In the evening when the club finishes in the evening, we clear up together and we hear children coming home with the setting sun on their backs and we see young wives coming home with their shopping bags and greeting each other. These kinds of scenes are never seen in Fujisawacho (Ishikawa Prefecture) where I live. This is because in Fujisawacho, large houses are scattered sparsely, and most houses are lived in by single people. The state of rural depopulation which was already a reality in Fujisawacho before the earthquake disaster, gives us a growing sense of urgency to start a new life, or build a town. I feel that we are at the starting line now, where we can create the kind of life that we really want.
There are many people in the Tea Club who can't keep up with the recovery effort. Isn't it okay that there are people walking down the street with tears in the eyes. I feel the necessity of team-making so as not to leave these people behind in the recovery effort.
Children see the adults working for recovery all the time without stopping. It is said that children in disaster-stricken areas have future dreams of being police-men, members of the self-defense force, doctors and nurses. Is this kind of dream healthy and suitable for the children who are going to lead the future of Japan?
I think that irrespective of the earthquake disaster or rural depopulation taking place, since all eyes of the world and Japan are focused on the Tohoku area, it is necessary to give these children the opportunity to get to know the world, and we ought to think about how to widen their possibilities.
The seminar on self-supporting reconstruction: "Toward the Light", held on 29 October, included victims from Rikuzentakata, Ofunato, Kessenuma, and Ishinomaki, with 90 people from Miyagi and Iwate Preferctures taking part and exchanging opinions.
In this regard, Coordinator, Mr Yoshinaga suggested that the qualities possessed by volunteers (e.g. working for free, working for the benefit of the public, working on their own initiative) is the best sort of energy. The seminar was concluded with the following words: 'Because volunteers work on their own initiative, if they spread themselves at the grassroots level, they will become a system that unifies the volunteers and be able to become a new democratic movement with ideas which are different from those of the conventional system.'
Rentai Tohoku will continue to support and corporate to enable self-reliance and recovery of the disaster-stricken areas.
Categories：Staff reports
2011.11.07 18:31 admin
