Helping Disaster-stricken Kumamoto by Kitchen Cars

The Kamaishi Kitchen Car Team entered Mashiki-cho as the seventh support trip since the Kumamoto Earthquake between April 14^th and 17^th, 2017. And this is the third support trip funded by GlobalGiving. As the first work, the Team had to repair kitchen cars they have left for Kumamoto kitchen car group to use for free. The high cost repairs, using money provided by the GlobalGiving, was an enormous help to Kumamoto Kitchen Car operators, since they do not have enough fund for operating kitchen cars.

One year has passed since the Kumamoto Earthquake, expecting many events to commemorate the disaster. Especially because of many events planned in Mashiki-cho, the Kamaishi Team visited this time where no media picks up as a rural news or no singer or movie star visits to express their supports. The place is the Children’s Life Education Center (Children’s L.E.C.), operated by a Christian organization, which provides secluded environments to children and families, having psychological or emotional problems due to difficulties encountered in their lives. In many cases, they are the victims of domestic violence and unusual family situations. The organization is not providing any treatment based on drug or operation, but it rather helps patients to develop a rhythm in daily living in secluded environments to restore their psychological order. For those who have graduated from the center, the organization also continues to provide counseling to make sure they do not have recurred problems.

The Kamaishi Kitchen Car Team visited there twice in the past, when they still had temporary houses to disaster-stricken people. In the past, staffs there were highly sensitive to prevent their children having any direct contacts with people in the temporary housing. Even though the Team provided attractive foods, such as chocolate-covered bananas, yakisoba (fried noodles), ox tongues, etc., often sold in festivals, the only information the Team received in the past was that children enjoyed a lot. The Team was never allowed to meet children. However, this time, when the Team offered the same food as it did before, for the first time, children came out and showed the Team their beautiful smiling faces. It was an enormous joy for the Team. But hearing about their psychological difficulties due to their past experiences from the center staffs was really a shock. Knowing their problems, their bright smiles really meant the expression of joy from the bottom of the heart. And their unusual smiles gave the Team an enormous reward, very difficult to be described. Children’s return of smiles on their faces, which they lost in their lives, really meant enormous reward to the Team’s support activities. While the Team was providing a chance of enjoying festival food, they were rewarded by the blessing of beautiful and genuine smiles.

One of success stories of rebuilding Kamaishi is “Kamaishi Yoisa” which performs a festival dance with the participation of a large number of Kamaishi residents and street-side watchers, many from the outside of the city. The Yoisa Festival they organizes strengthens people’s spirit for and commitment to rebuilding Kamaishi, creates business opportunities, and stimulates local economy. Appreciating the fortunate outcome of the festival, they thought of supporting disaster-stricken Kumamoto people by creating special goods and providing donations. This time, the Kamaishi Kitchen Car team carried the donation from Kamaishi Yoisa to a group of young people in Mashiki-machi who developed a movement called “Revival Mashiki.” They are expanding and developing diverse activities to stimulate community movements, while they are trying to learn from Tohoku experiences in rebuilding their communities. The Kamaishi Kitchen Car Team, supported by GlobalGiving, is actually conveying valuable lessons from Tohoku and is providing highly timely supports for community rebuilding. The “Revival Mashiki” team is now really challenging the difficult task of community redevelopment, owing to a strong support from the Kamaishi Kitchen Car Team funded by GlobalGiving.

Small support activities became the source of enormous joy and stimulation for community redevelopment activities. The Kamaishi Kitchen Car Team, without any intention of doing so, actually played highly important and indispensable roles for disaster-stricken Kumamoto people.

Links:

• Mashiki-cho, Redevelopment Market (Fukko Ichiba)
• Mashiki-cho, Yasunaga Area

Kamaishi Kitchen Car (KKC) members knew very well that disaster-stricken Kumamoto people will feel most stressed around the end of the first year since the earthquake. This is precisely the reason why they visited the Mashikicho Techno Temporary Housing (MTTH) to discuss about future events. One coordinator of future events from the KKC team met the heads of the Techno Temporary Housing Shop Arcade, the Neighborhood Community Association, and NPO Cannus (an association for home-visiting voluntary nurses) , and also each heads of A-F Blocks of Neighborhood Communities. The coordinator feared that they were not aware of stress people were feeling, because only a few months have passed since these Neighborhood Community organizations were established. These heads did not really understood how events that the coordinator is organizing will build a system of generating interactions among people and the expansion of Shopping Arcade business activities. Thus, discussions about events with these people always resulted in different reactions and levels of expectations. Now, the KKC members started discussing about the post-one-year memorial events, since, based on their own experiences, they knew how important it is to organize an event at the most stressful period.

Contrary to their expectation, KKC members are finding it easier to work with people at the Yasunaga Waiwai (Chatting) Arcade and organize events, since several Kumamoto Kitchen Car members are operating in that arcade. On February 25, they had an event at the Yasunaga Waiwai Arcade (see pictures of a flier and a crowd at the event), where Kumamoto and Kamaishi kitchen car members came together and sold food. Unlike relations with MTTH, this event was initiated by Kumamoto Kitchen Car members, which requested the participation of KKC members. Their initiative meant that they are actively trying to recover from the disaster and aggressively working to redevelop the area. This eagerness to rebuild the Yasunage Community can also be recognized in their charging the minimum price to food and services and donating all profit to rebuild the Yasunaga Shrine. They are trying to solicit cooperation from local people for rebuilding their own community, one of whose symbols in the area is the Shrine. They even agreed on February 25 to organize a big event on April 16 in cooperation with KKC members.

Because KKC members knew that disaster-stricken people feel most stressed about one year after a disaster and also that the public offices do not pay proper attention on the difficulties that ladies and wives are facing, the KKC members made a very unusual and excellent initiative to bring a mother who helped to operate kitchen cars and opened a restaurant, working as a cook, manager, and waitress. Actually this person was invited to this event, because of requests from the wives of Kumamoto Kitchen Car operators, who could not find anybody to consult about their problems. Since serious attention to the role of women in the process of redeveloping business has never been paid before, this person attracted a fairly large number of attendants to this meeting. They expressed problems about their roles in businesses, how to maintain their lives, to balance childrearing and business, relations with customers, etc. Especially, their worry about children is serious. Since they cannot find a daycare center or post-school centers for school children, they have to keep their children at a very small space of a kitchen car or a restaurant, which is not only dangerous but also unfavorable for children to face. Needless to say, they worry a lot whether they can make the recovery of their businesses, whether they are making a good business plan, whether they should make a decision to quite the present attempt, or how and when they can estimate the probability of succeeding in the present business. Wives’ worries are actually much more straight forward than husbands, who keep a lot of information confidential. The KKC members are providing really valuable supports to people who usually do not have any access to consultation and information. Many Yasunaga women were really delighted to have this type of support, and will continue to have personal communications through SNS, even though a long physical distance between Kumamoto and Kamaishi exists.

With some groups, the KKC members have been having difficulty to convince the value of community-based events due to very weak neighborhood associations, while with other groups, they have been successful in developing good relations, organizing events, and providing valuable supports. They have made especially valuable and rare supports and contributions to the wives of Kumamoto Kitchen Car operators, who suffers from serious stresses without having anybody to consult with about their problems. 

Links:

• Kamaishi Kitchen Car Operation
• Kumamoto Catering Association
• Kuramoto Flower Shop with Event Video