By Britt Lake | Chief Program Officer
We're proud to report that we have more stories of progress to share from our partners helping the people of Tohoku recover and rebuild after 2011's devastating earthquake and tsunami. Your generosity continues to impact the affected communities in myriad ways, from medical training to economic development to habitat restoration.
Since 2011, the percentage of residents in quake-damaged Ishinomaki City needing long-term care has increased by 30 percent. Japan Emergency NGO (JEN) has partnered with a local volunteer organization to provide nursing care classes to men in the city who are caring for their spouses, but often have limited experience in housework and are frequently isolated socially. The monthly classes focus on nursing topics for long-term caregivers, like preventing bedsores and caring for people with dementia, as well as alleviating stress for caregivers and practical skills like cooking for their spouses.
This spring, Ippan Shadan Hojin DSIA completed six years of work assisting the community of Isatomae, which was heavily damaged by the tsunami, rebuild its shopping arcade. The arcade, which houses eight shops and two restaurants, represents a first step in the redevelopment of Isatomae, allowing residents to not have to travel to neighboring communities for essential items and providing a new source of jobs in the community.
Hands on Tokyo has been organizing volunteers to support family farmers in Yamamoto-cho in Miyagi Prefecture who have been struggling with long-term labor shortages in the region resulting from the earthquake and tsunami. On a recent trip, volunteers from Tokyo helped a small farm by tending to paprika plants and weeding a field of leeks. Their volunteers have also helped clear brush and overgrown fields in and around temporary housing complexes for families still not permitted to return to their homes in Fukushima prefecture.
OISCA International continues to make progress toward their goal of restoring 100 hectares of coastal forest in Miyagi prefecture that were destroyed by the tsunami. This year their teams of volunteers from Japan, Thailand, and the United States have replanted 16 hectares of the coast with more than 70,000 black pine seedlings, and on return visits have seen that more than 99 percent of the seedlings have survived.
Thanks for your commitment to supporting the people and organizations who have worked for more than six years to rebuild and restore the communities of the Tohoku region. We are now closing this fund, but if you’d like to continue supporting disaster relief efforts around the world, you can find more communities that need your help at https://www.globalgiving.org/disasters.
Warmly,
Britt Lake + the GlobalGiving Team
By Sarah Taylor | Program Fellow, GlobalGiving
By Sarah Taylor | Program Fellow, GlobalGiving
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
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When a disaster strikes, recovery efforts led by people who live and work in affected communities are often overlooked and underfunded. GlobalGiving is changing this reality. Since 2004, we've been shifting decision-making power to crises-affected communities through trust-based grantmaking and support.
We make it easy, quick, and safe to support people on the ground who understand needs in their communities better than anyone else.
They were there long before the news cameras arrived, and they’ll be there long after the cameras leave. They know how to make their communities more resilient to future disasters, and they’re already hard at work. GlobalGiving puts donations and grants directly into their hands. Because the status quo—which gives the vast majority of funding to a few large organizations—doesn’t make sense.
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