The Nippon Foundation's Support for Persons with Disabilities and Initiatives for the Future

The Nippon Foundation

1. The Nippon Foundation's support for persons with disabilities

Immediately after the Great East Japan Earthquake, The Nippon Foundation launched discussions about support activities and established an in-house support center five days after the disaster, on March 16. The support center was responsible for four functions and roles - (1) coordinating in the disaster area, (2) collecting and delivering supplies, (3) handling public relations, and (4) fundraising - and many of the staff united to provide support for the disaster area. As the post-disaster support, the Foundation conducted emergency distribution of 50,000 yen as condolence money to families of those who died or were missing, coordinated volunteers locally in Ishinomaki, and dispatched a total of 5,000 student volunteers. The supports provided by The Nippon Foundation to the disaster area is summarized at the following website: （http://www.nippon-foundation.or.jp/en/what/spotlight/tohoku_earthquake/）

This report focuses supports for persons with disabilities and special needs.

Support activities by The Nippon Foundation consisted of projects independently planned and conducted by the Foundation, projects conducted by the foundation jointly with NPOs, and projects conducted by the foundation jointly with NPOs and local parties using support from corporations, and grants to NPOs for emergency activities of up to one million yen. One of the focuses for all support activities was on support for persons vulnerable to disasters who require special care (persons with disabilities, the elderly, pregnant women, patients with allergies, etc.). For example, the Hisaisha wo NPO to tsunaide sasaeru godo purojekuto (Tsunapuro) (Joint Project to Support Disaster Sufferers through Coordination with Nonprofits), which was developed taking into consideration the lessons learned from the Great Hanshin Earthquake that persons vulnerable to disasters were left behind at emergency shelters and temporary housing. This project consisted of visiting all 443 emergency shelters in Miyagi, uncovering the needs of those requiring special care, such as persons with disabilities, those requiring nursing care, mothers and children, and foreigners, and connecting these people with support organizations. Other examples of support include providing support for doctors making the rounds of emergency shelters to check on evacuees requiring nursing and getting pregnant women to evacuate to maternity clinics in Tokyo so that they could give birth with peace of mind.

Support activities specifically targeting persons with disabilities include construction of temporary housing for persons with disabilities and provision of support for persons with hearing impairments. Turning to temporary housing, we learned that many of the persons with disabilities in Ishinomaki, Miyagi, found life in the emergency shelters difficult, and their families had the psychological burden of being careful of the surrounding people. Therefore, we promptly decided to provide support to the social welfare corporation Ishinomaki Shoshin-kai for temporary housing specially built for persons with disabilities. Because of this, The Nippon Foundation Home Oguni No Sato, which could accommodate around 100 people, both families and single persons, was opened in June 2011, earlier than other temporary housing sites. In addition, The Nippon Foundation Home Toyo Ikuseien was opened in Tamura-shi, Fukushima, as an alternative to Toyo Ikuseien in Tomioka-machi, Fukushima, where the evacuation of residents was dragging out because of the nuclear accident.

During consultations with the Japanese Federation of the Deaf, it came to light that the federation wanted to send supplies and sign language interpreters to the disaster area, and it was because of this that we launched support for persons with hearing impairments. Since they wanted to deliver supplies as quickly as possible, the Foundation contributed 7.5 million yen to the Central Headquarters for Disaster Relief for Deaf People in March in order to assist support offices in each prefecture. Due to this support, the headquarters was able to promptly take various steps, including deploying vehicles for support activities in the disaster area and dispatching sign language interpreters to Miyagi, which is thought to have been effective support during the chaotic period until the government could start functioning. On March 27, supplies collected at the request of Meisei Gakuen School for the Deaf were delivered to the Miyagi Deaf Association using vehicles arranged by The Nippon Foundation.

Following that, The Nippon Foundation conducted two activities related to medium- to long-term support for persons with hearing impairments. The first was the Nakama (friend) project run by the Japanese Association of Social Workers for Deaf and Hard of Hearing. Through the project, social workers and licensed psychiatric social workers, who are well versed in the special characteristics of hearing impairments and can use sign language and communication methods that meet the particular needs of the individual, provide peripheral support for the independence of persons with hearing impairments. Since its launch in August 2011, more than three hundred cases have been handled through the project. The other activity involved a telecommunication relay service and a remote-sign-language and remote-speech-to-text service using TV phones and FAXs through The Nippon Foundation Remote Information/Communication Support Center. The project was launched to aid communication for people with hearing impairments who need to use a phone to rebuild their lives or who do not have equal access to information because of the earthquake; persons with hearing impairments living in Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima are able to use the service free of charge. Since the start of the project, the service has been used more than ten thousand times, and the service is still being provided, as of January 2015.

There were also situations when support provided by corporations was used for an NPO. Immediately after the earthquake, Softbank Mobile offered to lend mobile phones free of charge, and the phones were provided for one year to various entities, including Miyagi Headquarters for Disaster Relief for Deaf People in the Great East Japan Earthquake and persons with disabilities who were members of Fukushima Association for Persons with Hearing Impairments. In addition, Gulliver International Co., Ltd. offered to donate used vehicles. Twelve used vehicles were presented to twelve disability related organizations, such as JDF Miyagi Support Center and Fukushima Association for Persons with Hearing Impairments.

In order to quickly deliver the resources and commitment by well-meaning supporters, The Nippon Foundation provided up to one million yen in grants for emergency activities to NPOs and volunteer organizations. Since April 1, 2011, when the Foundation started to accept applications for grants, a total of 657.3 million yen has been provided to 651 organizations for 695 projects. The Foundation conducted a survey of those who received funds in order to ascertain what type of support activities were provided with one million yen. An analysis of the survey results by the foundation reveals that of the 659 projects, 59 were projects that fall under support for persons with disabilities. Regarding the fields of activities, the largest number of projects related to support for children (111 projects), followed by support for physical and mental health (75 projects) and material support (73 projects).

2. Future efforts based on the experiences from the Great East Japan Earthquake

When the Great Hanshin Earthquake hit in 1995, the Japan Disability Forum (JDF) had not yet been established, and each support group and organization for a particular group provided their own support. It is without a doubt a major step forward that following the Great East Japan Earthquake, organizations, centered on the JDF, were able to negotiate with the government for persons with disabilities and to undertake support activities. On the other hand, the actual conditions of struggling persons with disabilities affected by the disaster and issues related to support activities have become clear. For example, many organizations undertaking support activities for persons with disabilities noted that they were unable to find out where persons with disabilities were and provide support for them because information on persons with certificates for persons with disabilities were not released on account of the Act on the Protection of Personal Information. There were also problems with the system for the list of people requiring aid during a disaster and various examples of persons with disabilities struggling with life at emergency shelters and temporary housing. The Nippon Foundation thinks that it is important to keep the experience of the Great East Japan Earthquake fresh in mind and tie it to future efforts. On March 1, 2012, one year after the earthquake, the Nippon Foundation jointly held a symposium titled Great East Japan Earthquake: Current State of Support Activities for Persons with Disabilities and Problems for Reconstruction with JDF at the Sangiin Kaikan (Diet Members' Building). In the symposium, the condition of persons with disabilities during the disaster and support activities conducted by JDF and related organizations were reported, and future issues were then discussed.

As a follow-up effort, JDF will create a report and video documentary on its efforts following the Great East Japan Earthquake. It is hoped that this report and video will be used as reference material by Japanese local governments, organizations of persons with disabilities, and support organizations, when examining future disaster responses. Furthermore, an English version of the video and report will be made to inform support organizations and persons with disabilities throughout the world of Japan's experience. Plans in the near future consist of showing the video at the high-level government meeting of Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons that The UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) held in Incheon, South Korea, October 2012.

While some of what comes next may overlap with the comprehensive proposals summarized in this report, we would like to concisely list the efforts that The Nippon Foundation has been involved in that are believed will be important in the future. First, local disaster prevention training that includes both persons with disabilities and the elderly is an urgent issue. The people who help each other during emergencies are neighbors that know each other and people in the local community. In order to ascertain the location of elderly and persons with disabilities who require help are, it is necessary to regularly undertake evacuation training in the local area. For example, the Kahoku Shinpo (newspaper) reported that the Kosaba area of Karakuwa-cho, Kesennuma-shi, which repeatedly conducted evacuation training throughout the area that included persons with disabilities and the elderly, was able to minimize the number of victims (June 24, 2011, Kahoku Shinpo).

Second, it was often pointed out that it was impossible to make use of information on persons requiring aid during a disaster to confirm their safety and provide individual support because the government would not release the information to welfare-related parties and NPOs on account of ordinances on the protection of personal information. The Japan Federation of Bar Associations has expressed the opinion that providing information to independent organizations related to persons requiring aid during a disaster is a typical case when it is not necessary to obtain the consent of the individual and that it is justifiable to provide information on such persons to outside parties in order to confirm the safety of the elderly, persons with disabilities, and similar people without taking into consideration individual conditions (“Opinion on Sharing Information on Persons Requiring Assistance During Emergencies and Evacuees Who Have Left the Prefecture”, dated June 17, 2011). It is probably important to work to spread this interpretation to local governments and support organizations. Furthermore, it is thought necessary to build a mechanism to appropriately share information on persons requiring aid among local governments and NPOs.

Third, we often heard the view that it is difficult for persons with disabilities to live in general emergency shelters. Many persons with disabilities would like to live with their families in emergency shelters, and it is necessary to create a system and manual based on the idea that the elderly and persons with disabilities will be accepted at all shelters. However, it was pointed out that the system of the government designating fukushi (welfare) emergency shelters (emergency shelters for the elderly and persons with disabilities) did not function properly. In fact, whether designated a fukushi emergency shelter or not, there were many cases where persons with disabilities were accepted at facilities such as Ishinomaki Shoshin-kai that already provided residence for persons with disabilities, as well as independent support centers. The government also needs to adopt the stance of actively supporting facilities that persons with disabilities naturally congregate at during emergencies as fukushi emergency shelters.

Actual support provided to persons with disabilities by the Nippon Foundation
Joint Projects[389,100,987 yen for 5 projects]

Emergency activity grant (up to one million yen)[55,860,861 yen for 59 cases]