Miyagi Support Center News “LINK (Yui)” No. 32, July 27, 2011

Let’s Support our Fellows in Tohoku with our Bonds of friendship and strengths

Issued by the Miyagi Support Center and the Miyagi Northern Area Support Center of the Japan Disability Forum (JDF) Headquarters for the Comprehensive Support for Persons with Disabilities

Miyagi Support Center
Office: c/o Hagi-no-sato Fukushi-kojo, Taihaku-Ku, Sendai City
Phone: +81-80-4373-6077
FAX: +81-22-244-6965

Miyagi Northern Area Support Center
c/o Wakabaen, Towa-machi, Tome City, Miyagi Prefecture
Phone: +81-90-8349-9403
Fax: +81-220-45-2223
URL: http://www.dinf.ne.jp/doc/english/resource/tohoku_earthquake.html

Activities of JDF Miyagi Support Center in the latter half of July

Our support activities are now in the reconstruction stage. They are firstly directly to the affected persons with disabilities who are living not only in the shelters, but also in the temporary houses and their own affected houses. They are secondly to the welfare service providers.

Map of Miyagi. Each arrows indicates the areas covered by JDF Miyagi Northern Support Center and JDF Miyagi Support Center

The detailed activities are as follows.

Activities of JDF Miyagi Northern Support Center

Tome City:

Sending support volunteers to “Yui”, Employment & Life Support Center

Kesennuma City:

Giving support for persons with disabilities to move

Minami-sanriku Town:

Sending support volunteers to “Kaze-no-Sato” Consultation Support Center and “Nozomi” Welfare Workshop. They are stationed in the facilities, making visits to the shelters and temporary houses to respond to the needs of the affected persons with disabilities

Activities of JDF Miyagi Support Center

Ishinomaki City and Onagawa City:

Sending support volunteers daily to “Yumemi-no-Sato”. They are making visits to the shelters and temporary houses to respond to the needs of the affected persons with disabilities. Though it takes 2 hours to get there using high way, we manage to keep on supporting them.

Yamamoto Town:

Sending support volunteers daily to a workshop “Earth Village”. Their encouragements give us power to keep going, though it takes one hour to get there.

Support volunteers are supposed to act in group, scattering to all the directions of north, south, east and west in Miyagi Prefecture. They try to reach out to each one of the affected people with disabilities, stepping forward to community reconstruction.

JDF Miyagi Center got a staff for office works and for support activities
-A Support Volunteer came by Motorcycle from Osaka-

Photo: Soon after the disaster I came over here by my motorcycle, thinking of mobility

Hi, I am from Osaka. Let me share what I have been doing after the great disaster and how I got here. I have been involved in volunteer activities individually since the end of April. Firstly I engaged in removing rubbles and mad from the private houses for a week in Yamada Town, Iwate Prefecture. I understood the importance of giving focused support to a certain area and planned to give the continuous support to Yamada Town. But memory of my student life in Miyagi prefecture motivated me to move to Miyagi. Then I was dispatched by Disaster Medical Support set up by Tohoku Medical College to Hotel Kanyo which was functioned as a shelter for the affected people in Shizugawa, Minami-sanriku, Miyagi Prefecture. There I helped identifying needs from the affected people and hotel staff through making dialogue, monitoring hygiene system, tutoring children, setting the tables and so on. All of my work was inside of the hotel. In June I engaged in scrap and sweep out the broken houses at site. But I still felt the distance from the affected, and I wanted to be more close to the needy people to respond to their needs. Then I found JDF Miyagi Support Center. Now I am working as an assistant staff for office works and also as a staff for support activities there.

Photo: This is the headquarter of JDF Miyagi Support Center

Survey record (as of July 27, 2011)

Total number of the persons with disabilities who had dialogue with JDF:1,424
Total number of the supporters: 531

Call for dispatch supporters to the affected areas

waiting for your call to +81-80-4373-6077

Contents:

At site: Visiting the affected for needs identification/action-taking, etc.

At office: Phone consultation, general affairs, public relations, accounting, etc.

Places:

Miyagi Support Center (Sendai City)

Miyagi Northern Area Support Center (Tome City)

Translated by Japanese Society for Rehabilitation of Persons with Disabilities
Volunteer translator: Ms. Mayumi Yamazaki