Childcare Support at Disaster-Stricken Tohoku

Kirarin Kids (KK) organized quite many events in the past three months, such as parents-children communications through food, mother’s relaxation exercises, lessons on children’s physical growth, etc. For example, fathers and children got together to make soba (buckwheat noodle). Soba making was very popular because it becomes an opportunity for fathers to enjoy cooking. Since many parents have some worries about the growth of their children, lectures and consultation by public health nurses and medical specialists were helpful to parents. KK now has fixed this event’s schedule to offer on the every fourth Mondays, trying to give a peace of mind to mothers by offering consultation. This will create a good environment for childrearing in Rikuzen Takata.

The City Office is still housed in a temporary facility after six years, and presently has not even arranged a new location for rebuilding the office. Currently discussed are several locations, such as the center of newly raised land beside the sea, the present location, the place of unused elementary school, etc. To absorb people’s opinion on this issue, the Mayor and other city officials requested KK and other organizations to organize discussion sessions with them, especially focusing on difficult issues of a place safe from Tsunami, convenience or lower construction costs. Opinions were diverse, characterizing the existence of highly democratic environment in this city. This is precisely the type of democratic community environment which KK can contribute to build by making such meetings as a regular event of KK. Such meetings will link the city government and people and encourage people to think about the community policies. And an interesting perception of KK is that such activities are not separate from, but rather an extension of parents-children relations.

April is the time KK has graduates and new comers, and for their convenience KK now starts one hour earlier. However, their situation seems to be changing. With the shortage of workforce, many housewives are now wanted as regular or part-time workers. This newly arising situation seems to be reducing the number of parents and children attending daily activities, not special events. They are bringing children to nursery schools during their working time. Some kindergartens did not reopen after the Tsunami wiped away their facilities. But now with increased demand for nursery schools, even former kindergartens started to reopen as nursery schools. The shortage of labor is becoming a serious problem in the city. For example, no one applied for one shop which opened in April 1. They had to make a new offer. Another example is that one lady dental assistant could not get a full maternity leave and had to come back to work earlier due to the shortage of assistants.

Despite such situations, some mothers having multiple children are finding KK more convenient by bringing all children together in one place and have them play with others. In this sense, KK is an ideal place for keeping parents-children relations, while children themselves can play with their playmates. 

In the latter half of April, a new shopping arcade, called Apasse, will open in one corner of a huge land-level-raised area. There KK is planning to offer “One Day Kirarin Event” for children to play in a large space, intending to prevent isolation of parents and children from a newly developing community in a newly rebuilt and opened area. Since it will be held during Children’s Holiday in May, KK is preparing an event for children to make a Koinobori, which shows a carp bravely swimming up a fall (see a picture of preparation).

Even after six years, Rikezen Takata City looks like a construction site where dump cars busily come and go for continuously raising the level of land (see a picture of how raised land looks like). On this raised land, a big commercial complex and a library will be constructed soon, making people picturize a look of soon appearing shape of a city (see a picture of a planning map). The representative of KK recollects that we used to live in a culturally rich environment, where we had cultural facilities and transmitted our traditional culture from generation to generation. However, the situation is quite different now. With regard to one type of traditional dancing, the leader passed away and nobody is continuing the activities she built up, simply because everybody now lives in scattered places. It is not just possible to continue or transmit our culture, since they used to practice every night. Children also play important roles in these activities, and have valuable opportunities to interact with older generations and learn traditional dancing. Such activities enable children to be involved in community activities, which actually symbolized “Childrearing in a Community,” precisely the goal of KK activities. Although such traditional way is unfortunately dying away due to the Tsunami Disaster,  KK is rebuilding a new type of childrearing community in a way local young mothers wish them to be and also by mixing deliberate efforts to mix modern and traditional activities.  

Links:

• Kirarin Kids Homepage