Masanao Takeuchi
Director, Yamanashi Prefecture Association
for the Welfare of People with Disabilities (social welfare corporation)

1. The words Dr King left us

Dr Martin Luther King, the pastor and leader of the US civil rights movement, tragically fell to a terrorist’s bullet on 4 April 1968.

During his lifetime, Dr King left us the following words:

 “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes from continuous struggle.”

It was on 24 March, 1963, five years before Dr King died, that I founded the former Masuho Town Association for the Welfare of People with Physical Disabilities (now the Fujikawa Town Association for the Welfare of People with Disabilities) in the place where I currently live. I was inspired by the freshness of the fierce challenge to realise the potential of these words and, from then on, I adopted it as an immutable slogan for our organizational rules and activities, together with the watchwords of “Autonomy, independence, and self-love” which we had been using until then. 

In line with this slogan, all our group activities were run at our own expense, working without pay, and seeking to improve ourselves. At the time, local groups of people with disabilities everywhere clung tightly to the hands of the relevant local government department or the person in charge at the Council of Social Welfare in their operations. However, we rejected this, holding fast to independence however poor or immature we were, and ran our activities out of “offices” in the homes of our committee members.   

2. Key points for the disability movement

In 1993, the Basic Act for Persons with Disabilities came into force, and we rapidly moved within the prefecture to amend the names of our organisations from “People with Physical Disabilities” to “People with Disabilities”, seeking integration and consolidation with people with intellectual and mental disabilities.  

In addition, I paid individual visits to the mayors of surrounding towns and villages which did not yet have organisations, requesting support for the establishment and running of organisations for people with disabilities in those municipalities. After 13 years, all of the towns and villages in Minamikoma District (7 in all) were successfully organized, and I set up a District Federation (1964). Moreover, in 1973, I established the “Masuho Town Residents’ Council of the Movement to Expand the Living Environment for People with Disabilities” (the town’s mayor was inaugurated as Chair and organisations of people with disabilities as Vice-Chairs, together with the leader of the town council). Through a resolution by the town council, we erected a “Declaration Tower” proclaiming us a “Town Promoting the Movement to Expand the Living Environment for People with Disabilities” within the grounds of the town hall in the centre of town, moving to raise awareness among the town’s residents. We also held the “Sunflower Welfare Display” (cultural display by people with disabilities) alongside the town’s cultural festival, ahead of anywhere else in the prefecture, and this continues to this day.  

Tough roles and missions are imposed on the committee members in particular. There are no hierarchical relationships. Committee members are personnel who can “run errands” on an equal footing with other group members; in other words, we decided to ask for a promise to devote themselves to “making the rounds”. On top of this, it is vital that they meet conditions such as having an intimate knowledge of the situation in the local community. This is because, in an aging society, elderly people are next in line to become people with disabilities, and constantly keeping a benevolent eye on such people is demanded of us.

3. Interactions with the local community

If you push ahead with the disability movement, you will inevitably run into problems faced by the local community. These are not necessarily limited to those vulnerable to disasters, such as people with disabilities or the elderly, since they would befall everyone at the same time.　

In my town, at my suggestion, we organized “five-person teams”, disaster-prevention teams to support the evacuation of elderly people and those with disabilities in June 2005, and have already finished creating community disaster-prevention maps for this purpose. The term “five-person team” is an unfamiliar one; those who recall it are probably quite elderly. In the Edo Period, these were neighbourhood watch organisations for crime and disaster prevention, formed on the initiative of local residents and aiming at collective responsibility and the maintenance of public order. I adapted this idea, incorporating it into my self-help disaster-response structure.

I would like to draw particular attention to the fact that when it comes to disaster prevention, public rescue and assistance do not usually arrive in time when a disaster occurs. I want to impress on you the need to always keep in mind the initial prevention of disasters by self-help and mutual assistance. Each unit of the five-person team structure should be as small as possible – the ideal is the three surrounding houses. I believe that it is optimal to group together the people within eyeshot and earshot of one another.

4. Support for others

The most important thing that I have taken to heart from the projects with which I have been involved so far as a person with disabilities is to have the people around me understand what I, with my disabilities, cannot do or is impossible for me – put another way, the areas in which I cannot lead my day-to-day life satisfactorily without the assistance of another person. In other words, it is crucial to give the people around me a good knowledge of information about me: what I can do for myself, what I cannot do, and what I can do with assistance. This is by no means something shameful or rude; rather, I think that it is a matter of essential consideration towards us and towards those around us, preventing unnecessary worry or wasted effort.

In addition to this, one more important thing is to move away from contentment with always and only being in the position of beneficiary, receiving help and being looked after. As far as possible, we should not fail to keep an eye out for others – if we are able to provide cooperation and support without it being too much for us or causing issues given our disabilities, we should graciously and generously extend a hand to support others.

The origin of my work with the disability movement was a project to provide places and opportunities to meet others who wanted to get married for friends who had given up on marriage or experienced problems finding a spouse because they had a disability.  

I named this project “Sunflower Get-together – to find wonderful friends and spouses”, and held the first get-together on 19 – 20 October, 1974, with an overnight stay at the Yamanashi Prefecture Mt. Atago Youth Nature Centre. We went on to expand the invitation to the Kanto area, renaming it the “Jumbo Sunflower Get-together”, and have held 47 highly popular events so far.

Although a disability places limits on one part of a person’s body or mind, it does not mean that we have lost all our abilities, and so I want to always retain my desire to work with pride. I believe that I must not forget to demonstrate through my own experiences that people with disabilities can overcome a position of “weakness”, in which we need protection: with appropriate support, ordinary, everyday lives are possible for us.

If our disabilities could become “blueprints” for the construction of normal, everyday lives in this world, it would bring me the greatest happiness possible. I want to cultivate a society in which it is taken for granted that there will be people with disabilities and people without disabilities, in order that people, communities, and towns may be open and welcoming to all.

5. To young people, in particular

Young people have unbounded dreams, hopes, and overflowing energy. They have a brilliance which allows them to recover immediately even if they fail or suffer setbacks, and to take the next step unerringly. Jackie Robinson, the famous former US Major League player, said that “The opposite of ‘impossible’ is not ‘possible’. It is ‘challenge’”. I hope that you will never forget these words. So pick up those hesitant feet and take one step forward.