Sponsor Fellows for Tohoku and Japan's Recovery

Ofunato is a major seaport city in Iwate with about 40,000 people. The terrible tsunami swept and ruined buildings and housings in the town. About 1,800 temporary housings have been built. However, it is often a challenge to build a new community of people from different areas. Imagine staying with whom you don't know or are not familiar with. You would be much stressed.

In order to ensure a healthy and comfortable life to all inhabitants, the local government hired 89 local staff. However, as the governmental function was heavily damaged, there were few people who could manage such a large number of staff effectively.

Mr. Hiroto Kikuchi, a nonprofit leader in Iwate, started a project to manage communities of temporary housings, in partnership with the local government and various support organizations. And, in the late of September, Mr. Yoshitaka Narita, who had worked as a manager of an IT company, joined in the project as a Fellow to support Mr. Kikuchi.

With his experiences in corporate planning, project management, human resources management, etc., Mr. Narita has been supervising local staff hired by the government’s budget so that they can address various issues in temporary housing communities. Mr. Kikuchi said, “Thanks to his contribution, I became able to secure my time for other important works.”

Mr. Narita believes it is important for the local people themselves to discuss and rethink how to they rebuild their own community. “In partnership with the local government, we will promote such kind of resident participation in the recovery,” he added.