Taro Tokuda
Manager, The Disaster Recovery Support Section
FAJ
March 11, 2011 is a date that is burned into our memory. Four and half years have passed since that day. Let me take this opportunity to express my sincere condolences for people who were killed in the earthquakes and tsunami, and for the physical and psychological distress and fatigue experienced by the survivors in drastically changed or deteriorated life conditions in evacuation. My sympathies to people who lost their beloved ones, property, memorabilia, and in some cases something else that is irreplaceable - one's "hometown" itself. My sympathies are also with people who are still living difficult lives in shelters. As I write this I am taking a moment of silence to direct my heart and sympathy to these people.
For the last four and a half years of our activities we kept asking ourselves a question. How can we find more ways for facilitation to be used to recover the functional connections that had been lost between the members of the community, so that each person can find their place to belong? We should be able to find ways to support them to find their roles, opportunities, participation and relationships amongst themselves, ultimately resulting in building an inclusive society that doesn't leave anyone out.
In these four and half years we were fighting against our sense of powerlessness. Honestly speaking, in the beginning I was wondering what we could provide with facilitation. The only thing that kept up our spirits was to keep reminding ourselves of the facilitators' mission, that is, "supporting people in extreme difficulties is not the only direct support, but also nurturing social networks through cooperation and collaboration so that society can overcome current structures and factors that keep social exclusion in place. That is where the philosophy and skills of facilitation can play increasingly bigger roles."
If you look at it, isn't it a fact that our society is woven through thousands of tiny, subtle, slow and varied activities?
The fact that facilitation is one of those activities might have given us the power to keep generating and nurturing as many "connections" and "involvements" as we did, even in the middle of the experience of powerlessness.
I believe the accumulation of these small and steady steps has meaning to it if it can generate a spin of hope by preventing physical and psychological isolation for as many people as possible, and also if it can keep us from forgetting by pushing everything into the general category called "history" in the flood of overused and misused words of "Tohoku," "Disaster-stricken areas," and "Recovery."
We have witnessed the day-by-day changes to the landscape in Otsuchi, Kamaishi, Minamisanriku, Ishinamaki, Minamisoma, Iwaki and other places.
But "it has changed" is not the same as "it is over."
Yet again, other natural disasters have occurred in Japan since the Great East Japan Earthquakes.
While deepening what it means to recover, to support and to facilitate, I believe that our activity as facilitators is one of the long journeys which doesn't have real "ending" to it.
In closing, thank you so much to all of you who took action with us and all of you who supported us in many different ways. We deeply appreciate your continuous support.
The Disaster Recovery Support Section* of the Facilitators Association of Japan (FAJ)
From March 2011 to March 2015
Published on January 18, 2016
Editor: NPO The Facilitators Association of Japan (FAJ)
The Disaster Recovery Support Section
Taro Tokuda
Mariko Suzuki
Chie Endo
Ikuo Sugimura
Masaki Onoue
Kuniko Iijima
Eri Urayama
Yuzuke Urayama
Yusuke Asaba
Kimiko Kato
NPO The Facilitators Association of Japan (FAJ)
3-12-8 Sendagaya, Shibuyaku, Tokyo
Contact: fukkou311@faj.or.jp
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