{"id":6744,"date":"2018-05-07T16:36:22","date_gmt":"2018-05-07T07:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/habitatjp.org\/en\/?p=6744"},"modified":"2018-05-07T16:56:11","modified_gmt":"2018-05-07T07:56:11","slug":"7-years-after-the-great-east-japan-earthquake-in-miyagi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/habitatjp.org\/en\/archive\/6744","title":{"rendered":"7 years since the Great East Japan Earthquake in Miyagi"},"content":{"rendered":"

March 11, 2018 marks the 7th anniversary of Great East Japan Earthquake. Habitat Japan began supporting Iwate and Miyagi prefectures immediately after the earthquake disaster\u00a0through 2015. Students from Habitat Japan\u2019s campus chapters across the country continue\u00a0to visit the\u00a0 Tohoku region in an effort to continue its volunteer and share knowledge\u00a0about the earthquake disaster to its younger generations.\u00a0 A\u00a0 campus chapter at\u00a0Tohoku University in Sendai, Miyagi has been regularly visiting and supporting the\u00a0community at Omori temporary housing (Omori Temp). Omori Temp is a relatively\u00a0large-scale temporary housing within Ishimaki city which consists of four housing\u00a0complexes. However, with its upcoming closure in August 2018, only a dozen or so\u00a0households currently reside in the complex. The complex\u2019s community association is also\u00a0scheduled to end its activities in March. We will continue to support the community by\u00a0understanding the current needs through networking and communication with the residents.<\/p>\n

Mr. Oide, who is the chair of Omori Temp community association, is one of the residents who supports our student activities and has warmly welcomed the students\u2019 ideas. Mr. Oide explains, \u201cto avoid isolation of temporary housing residents, we\u2019ve proactively\u00a0welcomed volunteers and periodically organized resident gatherings. However, getting the\u00a0residents bought in on the community association\u2019s activities has been a challenge, given\u00a0that the residents come from various backgrounds with many being emotionally unstable\u00a0from the earthquake disaster.\u201d For example, some people complained about the community\u00a0association\u2019s use of money without understanding that financial aids were sought for its
activities. Mr. Oide continues, \u201cwe need the help of volunteers. Residents need to show\u00a0gratitude toward volunteers who travel long distance to help us. Volunteers need to show\u00a0gratitude toward residents who welcome them. You need gratitude going in both directions\u00a0in order to develop a long-lasting and positive relationship.\u201d Student volunteers nodded\u00a0strongly to the words of Mr. Oide.\u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Students visited Ms. Minei, a temporary housing resident whose husband passed 3 years\u00a0ago and now lives alone. She tells the students to \u201cbe rational.\u201d Ms. Minei continues,\u00a0\u201cpeople who evacuated from various districts moved into Omori Temp and we had to build a\u00a0community from scratch. Initially, a lot of people said bad things about each other...\u201d Being\u00a0disaster-stricken and required to live in temporary housing, what Ms. Minei had to go\u00a0through must have been immense. However, she was determined to \u201cnever bad-mouth\u00a0others\u201d and \u201clive according to own beliefs\u201d. Ms. Minei\u2019s words strongly resonated with the\u00a0students.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

7 years have passed since the Great East Japan earthquake. Temporary housing complexes are\u00a0gradually closing as people move out into public housing and new homes. While these\u00a0moves are a reflection of earthquake disaster reconstruction making its progress,\u00a0community development continues to be a challenge as residents are continuously having\u00a0to adapt to new living environments. Kenta Nabatame, who participated as a volunteer,\u00a0explains that the nature of volunteer activities also evolve with the progress of\u00a0reconstruction but there remains a lot of work that needs to be and can be \u3000done.\u00a0\u201cVolunteering at Omori Temp made me think about the fundamentals of volunteer. I was\u00a0told repeatedly to \u201cdo what is in the best interest of others\u201d, \u201cbe rational\u201d, and \u201cdon\u2019t forget\u00a0to show\u00a0 gratitude\u201d. I think these words all describe the fundamental essence of\u00a0volunteerism. These are what inherently reside in everyone\u2019s hearts but also easy to\u00a0overlook. Today\u2019s Tohoku region reminds us of these important elements. As a volunteer, I\u00a0felt that we need to go beyond what\u2019s typically considered a good deed and genuinely do\u00a0what is in the interest of others.\u201d Campus chapter students will continue to volunteer in\u00a0Tohoku to \u201cdo what is in the best interest of others.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 11, 2018 marks the 7th anniversary of Great East Japan Earthquake. Habitat Japan began supporting Iwate […]","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":6747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,46,47,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activity-reports","category-youth","category-japan","category-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/habitatjp.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/habitatjp.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/habitatjp.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/habitatjp.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/habitatjp.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/habitatjp.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/habitatjp.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/habitatjp.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/habitatjp.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/habitatjp.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}