Disaster Response Japan Project #9820

Sponsor Fellows for Tohoku and Japan's Recovery

by ETIC

Sponsor Fellows for Tohoku and Japan's Recovery

Project Report | Feb 19, 2014
Gouta's Story: Ishinomaki 2.0

By ETIC. | Disaster Recovery Leadership Development Project

Gouta (right) with a Fellow

Before 3.11, Gouta Matsumura, the president of ISHINOMAKI 2.0, used to support communities in the coastal city of Ishinomaki. The earthquakes and tsunami on March 11th severely affected his office, which was situated nearby a river, causing flooding on the ground floor and demolition of nearly the half of the building. In the beginning of the disaster recovery, he was working hard to clean mud and rubles. Gradually, more and more people, including volunteer staff from less affected regions, also joined the cleaning.

This was how ISHINOMAKI 2.0 started as an established organization that aims to involve both the locals and volunteers in community re-building in Ishinomaki. Declaring a mission of making Ishinomaki a city of openness and creativity, the organization has actively developed a variety of activities, such as publishing free magazines, organizing events, providing spaces for community activities, broadcasting radio programs, and running an affordable accommodation. Two staff members newly joined the organization in April, 2013, and since then, they have contributed to accelerating the organizational development.

Gouta hopes that, towards 2017, ISHINOMAKI 2.0 will catalyze more bottom-up initiatives for the town of Ishinomaki, which will hopefully boost communication between the locals and non-locals within the community.

Links:

Ishinomaki 2.0 website (English)

Back to all project reports

About Project Reports

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.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.