"FACILITATION"" What we can do -- Our 4-year story since March 2011 (No.2)

Facilitators' Stories --an account of the four years

"What can we, the Japan Facilitation Association (FAJ), do to support people affected by disasters when they begin to take steps toward rebuilding their local communities right after a large-scale disaster?

How can the FAJ as an NPO, whose focus is facilitation, contribute the expertise and competence of our organization to the residents of the disaster-stricken communities as they begin to rebuild?

With these questions in mind, the FAJ launched the Disaster Recovery Support Section as a new unit following the Great East Japan Earthquake.

The following pages explain how the FAJ as an organization began to involve itself for the first time in disaster recovery, and our activities toward making a contribution.

The FAJ Disaster Recovery Support Section set out two major areas of focus for our activities. One was "Rebuilding local communities and supporting recovery activities initiated by local residents themselves;" the other was "Enhancing networking between supporting organizations." Based on various activities in each area of focus, we will discuss mainly our activities in Minamisoma City for the first area of focus, and the work conducted in alliance with the East Japan Earthquake Recovery Support National Network (nicknamed JCN) for the second area of focus.

"On that day, each facilitator was..."

On March 11 2011, the East Japan Great Earthquake, an unprecedented disaster, hit Japan. Minute by minute, broadcasts began to reveal the devastating damage in each stricken area. The members of the Facilitators Association of Japan (the FAJ) began to look for ways they could use their strengths to support those affected by the disaster.

When the disaster in Japan began to be broadcast on international television, Taro Tokuda was at Inchon International Airport in Korea. TV monitors were showing the tsunami washing away towns and villages in Tohoku, Japan. Unable to find words, all Tokuda could do was to keep watching the scene like everyone else in the airport.

Tokuda never imagined that such a severe disaster would strike Japan while he was in Korea, taking a long overdue vacation. His homebound flight was canceled, and he was stuck at the airport with other tourists. He began by doing what he could where he was, talking with his own tour conductors and getting them to take care of other Japanese tour groups whose tour conductors had already left the airport, Tokuda was experiencing a rising frustration at being in a distant land, at being away from Japan.

Around the same time in Japan, Mariko Suzuki was sitting in a local bus heading for central Yokohama. The facilitation seminar in Totsuka ward she had been conducting was cancelled partway through when the venue closed due to the earthquakes. There was no railway service. Her bus moved slowly in the congested traffic. Nobody knew when the bus would arrive at its destination. The city was dark due to blackouts, and the mood of the passengers in the bus was heavy and somber. Suzuki suddenly remembered she had candy in her purse.

"Would you like some candy?" she asked other passengers in a cheerful voice. Passengers began to respond and thank her. Then others who had candy and snacks followed her example, gradually developing into pockets of conversation about what they had just experienced.

The bus, which normally should have taken an hour, arrived at Yokohama station six hours later. Though the bus passengers were tired, their mood was much brighter than it had been when the bus left. Suzuki ended up spending the night at Yokohama station.

Chie Endo of Sendai City was in a cafe having a preparatory meeting for the then regular meetings of the FAJ Sendai Salon when the first tremors hit. After the violent shaking subsided, she walked back to her apartment. Finding that the electricity, gas, and water were not working, she went to the NHK Sendai Broadcasting Station and saw for the first time how much damage had been caused by the tsunami--"Oh my, this is so terrible."

Her apartment was not badly damaged, so she spent the night there, while wondering about her neighbors. "Fortunately, we had no injuries at all, but what about everyone else?" The next day, Endo took out her easel pad to make two handwritten posters and when she finished, she put them up on the first floor of her apartment building.

One poster read "Please let us know how you are" with a list of room numbers of the apartments with a space for people to write in. Another poster read "Please let us know if there are any cracks on the wall of your veranda." She taped big fat markers on strings next to both posters. People began to fill in their status, and residents of the apartment passing by the posters were relieved to see that their neighbors were safe.

Launch of Disaster Recovery Support Section in the FAJ

In Korea, Tokuda got his return flight to Japan on the next day, March 12. He arrived home in Tsukuba only to find an endless list of things that needed to be done. In addition to working as a professional facilitator, Tokuda had responsibilities on a number of other fronts, such as chair of the FAJ, board member of Ibaraki NPO Center Commons, and chair of Universitas Tsukuba, which runs Tsukuba Citizens' University. Among them, the FAJ is a national organization, which meant that some members could have been affected by the earthquake and other members would be concerned about them. Tokuda sent out an email to the mailing list shared by all the FAJ members as follows:

"Regarding the Great East Japan Earthquake, although the situation is still unstable, I would like to communicate the following to you urgently.

First of all, I would like to express my heartfelt sympathy to those affected by the disaster. Also, I would like to express my appreciation and respect to all of you who are already participating in rescue and support activities in different forms. I am humbled by you.

To every member who is in the disaster-stricken areas right now: Please make your own and your family's safety your first priority. Our members in other parts of Japan are rooting for you in many different ways. When you have even a little energy to spare, I hope you will start talking with people around you as much as you can easily handle, to people who might have some disability, illness, injuries, the elderly, those with infants, or with language difficulties. Because I know that even just speaking and encouraging one another will empower people in the midst of worry and anxiety.

To all members in other parts of Japan: I believe the greatest support we can render to the disaster-stricken areas is to do our usual work in our usual places. That is where many forms of "mutual assistance" activity will emerge. Let's assess incoming information and take action to move the situations forward gradually, making use of each one's strong suits, and the mindsets and skills you have acquired through your activities in the FAJ. Please be safe as the aftershocks are still ongoing. Please pardon this quick and short message."

It is noteworthy here that Tokuda is already mentioning the possibility of rendering support through facilitation.

Tokuda became engaged in various disaster support activities in Ibaraki prefecture, and three days after the first email to the entire FAJ members mailing list, he sent out another email as follows, this time to the FAJ board members mailing list.

"I would like to sort out what we, the FAJ, can and should do as an organization in the short to midterm.

One of the important things in the short term is confirming people's safety, and we have already started this thanks to the leadership of Mr. Kotoh and other members of administration team.

We should start some mid-term activities that make use of our strengths. Although there is already a call for establishing scientific communication to form a bridge between citizens and experts around issues with the electricity outages and nuclear power plants, I believe the field to which we can contribute most by using our strengths is in supporting the establishing of communication channels in the temporary makeshift communities in the disaster-stricken areas.

As of today, Ibaraki prefecture began to accept people from Fukushima prefecture so that they can evacuate from radiation exposure. Construction of temporary housing will pick up speed. I would like us to start thinking about what kind of "moves" we should take. I would appreciate it if the board members would discuss this theme and administration office offer its support for this.

One regret I have is that Ms. Endo and I (Tokuda) will be occupied with "moves" in our own local districts for a while. In order to handle this gap, I think it would be a good idea to start a special mission project including, if necessary, fellow members and members in Kobe who have experience from the Great Hanshin Earthquake disaster.

A meeting to discuss collaboration between earthquake volunteers, NPOs and the government will be held at 1 p.m. today. Let's us contribute our strengths as a member NPO.

What Tokuda wanted to communicate here is a call to consider what the FAJ could and should do as an NPO. It was Mariko Suzuki who immediately responded to his communication.

Here is what I thought about Mr. Tokuda's email.

Right now, individual members who feel they do not have the time to respond in regard to safety confirmation or any other urgent responses as an organization should act for the moment as individuals. Rather than clinging to rules, any acts in good faith should be viewed with generosity by the board.

FOR THE SHORT TERM: Do not cancel regular meetings and already scheduled events if you can at all hold them. Create these occasions for higher quality of learning and conversation so as to elevate facilitators' abilities so that the FAJ can contribute its best to the disaster recovery in the long term. Also, there may be a need for facilitators of urgent meetings close to home. I request that the FAJ committee review the existing facilitator requirements program so that we can find local facilitators easily.

LONG-TERM: The long road to recovery has just begun. Conversations to resolve various conflicts and issues will continue. We need to be powerful and ready to tell people, "Please use the FAJ." Right now, both the media and the people are strongly concerned about this disaster. I want the FAJ to continue to support the people affected by the earthquake even after the media and people are no longer interested in them.

FROM NOW ON: I am not sure if I can replace Mr. Tokuda or Ms. Endo, but I will start acting to launch the special mission project as liaison to the community. I would like to include both FAJ members and professional facilitators who are not our members.

This is for the FAJ to contribute what only we can provide."

As Suzuki's father had long been involved in volunteering activities, she felt intimately familiar with social action from a young age, and developed a passion for it herself. For her, learning was important specifically in order to contribute to society, and she had always wanted the FAJ to actively participate in the resolution of social issues.

Professor Itsuo Tasaka, an organizer of the FAJ, immediately responded that he resonated with their communications. Encouraged by this Suzuki proposed an agenda for the next board meeting the following day 17th. Suzuki was so determined to bring the Special Mission Project into form, she even thought, "If the board meeting will not give me the go ahead, I will start it alone!"

The first FAJ board meeting after the Great East Japan Earthquake was held on March 27. Normally the meeting is held with all members present, but this time, it was conducted in Tokyo and Osaka connected by Skype. In Tokyo, power shortages had been announced, and some of the lights in the Tokyo meeting room were turned off to save energy. For the same reason, the room heat was set low. Among many items on the agenda, "The Special Mission Project" Suzuki proposed was the first to be discussed and immediately given the go ahead with a budget. The decision was made to launch the Disaster Recovery Support Section in the FAJ, with Tokuda, Suzuki and Endo appointed as board members, and they were to decide about other members and plans for action." This swift decision was because the damage from the disaster was still growing and there was no time to waste with long discussions at a board meeting that convened only once a month.

After the FAJ board meeting, they also selected three Administrative members (Atsushi Tagashira, Terumasa Kotoh and Ikuo Sugimura), six advisory members from FAJ Fellow Members (Takatoshi Ikeda, Takayuki Karube, Yukiko Kuroda, Tamio Nakano, Osamu Nishi, and Kimitoshi Hori). Some of them had experience in recovery support activities for the Great Hanshin Earthquake. And so the Disaster Recovery Support Section in the FAJ commenced its activities.

Out to local areas:

Endo, who was in Sendai when the earthquake hit the area, worked to support NPOs and local municipalities to build their own communities as her profession, so naturally she had already become involved in the recovery activities in Sendai including helping run volunteer centers in disaster-stricken areas. Tokuda and Suzuki wanted to Endo to come to attend meetings with them, but she could not. They were at a loss. Then they received a short email from Endo.

"Why don't you two come here to Sendai?"

Of course--If Endo cannot come to Tokyo, why don't we visit her? Visiting the affected area will give us more information and useful hints for our own activities. The three of them checked their schedules and picked three days, from April 8 to 10, to travel to Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures and interview local people using Sendai City as a base, and to discuss their future activities. But they did feel hesitant: would it be all right just to visit disaster-stricken areas only to listen to people at a time like this?

Of course, they were already thinking ahead, focusing on providing mid to long term support, but this hesitation lingered with them.

Their idea to deliver "Stationery Rescue Packs" may have been a byproduct of their hesitation. Based on Endo's information that "They are short of paper and pens in the shelters and volunteer centers. Sometimes they even use pieces of cardboard to take notes." The three of them decided to make a package of writing materials used frequently when facilitating and bring them on their visit to give away. Tokuda used the mailing list to ask members to donate stationery. They could have simply bought them, but Suzuki proposed to use this opportunity to let the FAJ members participate in support activities.

Four days after the request for the donation, April 7, boxes of overnighters with a specified arrival date arrived at Tsukuba Citizens' University. Inside these boxes were relatively new stationery supplies, out of their boxes but apparently newly bought for the donation. Some FAJ members came from Kanagawa prefecture to help with packing. They worked together to sort the supplies out into categories, such as Markers, Copy Paper, and so on, and finally made sets of Stationery Rescue Packs. In each pack was a small leaflet titled "Why not share information using visual control?" made by Nishi and Hori so that people who receive this pack could make the best use of the supplies.

※ Download link for the leaflet, "Why don't we share information using visual control?"

https://www.faj.or.jp/activity/support/reconstruction/tool/index.html

The next day, April 8, the strongest aftershock came. Tokuda and Suzuki left for Sendai in Tokuda's car, with back seats packed with a gas can, portable toilets, water bottles and the Stationery Rescue Packs. On each road they took, the Jobando highway, the Hanetsudo highway, and the Tohokudo highway, the traffic congestion reported in the wake of the disaster had already disappeared. Most of the cars they passed were emergency vehicles.

On the way to Sendai in their car, there was constant conversation. The four-hour drive passed quickly as they discussed the days after the earthquake, possibilities for facilitation, how to run the Disaster Recovery Support Section in the FAJ, and other subjects.

As soon as they arrived at Endo's apartment, the three of them immediately visited the Volunteer Centers for Disaster Rescue in Miyagi prefecture, where not only local volunteers but more than 10 national NPO and Councils of Social Welfare (Shakai Fukushi Kyougikai) from other prefectures had set up base camps and held general assemblies at 6 p.m. everyday. The three FAJ members delivered their "Stationery Rescue Packs" and joined the regular assembly immediately to gather local information. By the end of the meeting, they set up individual hearing interviews with Shien P, the Joint Committee for Coordinating and Supporting Voluntary Disaster Relief (shien-p-saigai.org), Kinki, Chugoku and Shikoku blocks of the National Council of Social Welfare, Sendai and Miyagi NPO Center, Disaster Prevention Research Institute, TSUNA-PRO (A project to connect victims and rescue NPOs), and others.

During these hearing interviews with individual organizations, the three FAJ members found that they naturally shared the same rules, that is, when they listened, they not only listened from their own perspective, but also with the emotions and thoughts of the people who were engaged in rescue activities in the area.

On April 9, they drove to the Ichinoseki Citizens Activity Center in Ichinoseki City, Iwate prefecture. Hitoshi Ono, assigned to run the Center, was a representative of his own NPO, RESPAITO HOUSE HANDS, as well as a member of the FAJ. Having the word "Facilitation" as common denominator among them, their hearing interview was very productive. As Ono was one of the founding members of the NPO Iwate Fukko Collaboration Center (ifc.jp), which was scheduled to open at the end of April, the FAJ members asked him to find out if he could involve the FAJ in any possible support for their first founding assembly.

After this meeting, the three FAJ members met Asae Okubo, who is a representative of an NPO called Morino Dengonban YURURU (yururu.com), based in Sendai City. She was also a member of the FAJ. In the meeting, they discussed the possibilities of using facilitation for disaster recovery support.

On April 10, they visited the Disaster Volunteer Center in Nakoso-ward in Iwaki City (ndvc.bglog59.fc2.com) to interview with The Citizens' Committee in Japan for Overseas Support, Shapla Neer (shaplaneer.org) to conclude this trip.

In just a three-day visit, as short as it was, they got a glimpse of the scale of the damage, the suffering of the people, and who were the main players in offering support. The FAJ Disaster Recovery Support Section had already set up two pillars for their activities: "Rebuilding local communities and supporting recovery activities initiated by the very local residents," and "Enhancing networking of supporting organizations." From of this trip, they had a shared impression that the needs for Pillar #1 had not emerged yet, but regarding Pillar #2, in the activities to connect different supporting organizations, facilitation was already needed.

In fact, the foundation meeting for the JCN, the Japan Civic Network for Earthquake Relief in East Japan, had already been held on March 30 with the participation of Tokuda and Kotoh from the FAJ, so the first step for connecting and collaboration had already been taken.

Beginning support of the disaster-stricken area with Facilitation

Tokuda and Suzuki headed for Iwate on April 28, this time to participate in the foundational general assembly of the NPO Iwate Fukko Collaboration Center" (ifc.jp) held in Kamaishi City in Iwate prefecture as facilitators of the assembly.

The Assembly was held in the Kamaishi Building, a city-owned building which still showed scars left by the tsunami. As there were no chairs, about 20 participants conducted the meeting standing. They picked this date for their first meeting because Junichi Kano, the representative board member of NPO Iwate Fukko Collaboration Center, had a strong intention. This day, April 28, was the forty-ninth day* from the earthquake on March 11. The meeting started at 14:46 with one minute of silent prayer.

* In the Buddhist tradition, the 49th day after someone passes away is said to be the date their soul returns to heaven after cleansing their days on Earth.

The roles of Tokuda and Suzuki at the meeting were to use "visual control," that is to record and display, what the participants said in the meeting, a method known as "graphic facilitation." A few minutes before the meeting started, Kano requested that they create a space in the meeting where people could feel free to interact. This on-the-spot request challenged them to become inventive and produce right away on site.

Time for interaction: Tokuda asked the people in the meeting to break into groups of three and asked them to share first whatever they had as thoughts and/or feelings in their small groups, then to ask someone in each small group to share in the room about what they had shared in their small group. People from every group in the room shared common feelings about this 49th day after the disaster and the participants continued to listen to one another. There were silent nods and eyes that filled with tears, and the room was wrapped in a quiet sense of connectedness.

Another purpose of their visit to Kamaishi was to support another event, called Mazu Yappeshi Kamaishi ("Just do it Kamaishi" in the local dialect), hosted in Kamaishi by some facilitator friends based in Tokyo. They planned to host various activities in this two-day event on May 4 and 5 to give those affected by the disaster a chance to have fun. Though the event had core members, many other people came from all over Japan to participate in these two days and no one knew who would come when or what they would do. This is in a way normal for disaster areas. This being a season of consecutive holidays, many people in Japan chose to visit the disaster areas to give support, and the Volunteer Centers in each city were each working hard to coordinate this flood of "volunteers" from all over Japan.

In that context, Tokuda and Suzuki accepted the role of coordinators of the event. How could they arrange so that volunteers from all over Japan, who shared the same intentions but had never met before, immediately began to work as a team? Tokuda put up on the wall several large sheets of paper to write down information about the local areas, important guidance and lists where volunteers could fill in their names, where they had come from, what they brought with them, what they could provide, start and end dates, and the travel method they were using. Volunteers got the intent of these frameworks on paper and filled in the required information.

Tokuda left Kamaishi on May 1 for other activities in Tokyo and was replaced by Ikuo Sugimura, who took over the role of organizer of the entire event using the information on the paper on the walls. Suzuki and Sugimura facilitated meetings three times a day, morning, lunch time and evening.

On May 4, the first day of the two-day event, around 30 volunteer staff turned up to support the event. Citizens of Kamaishi came out from their temporary shelters or from their half-destroyed homes to Aoba Street, where much of the event's entertainment was happening. The street was decorated with colorful flowers planted beforehand by the staff. They could enjoy a mini-live performance by a singer/songwriter, sitting and chatting while drinking Amazake, a non-alcoholic fermented rice drink, and an imaginary train game for children. Especially, "Mochitsuki" became a main event, at which citizens from shelters and professional rugby players of the "Sea Waves" team from Kamaishi City pounded rice with huge wooden mallets, taking turns to make mochi rice cakes. This moment brought some of the old liveliness back to the disaster-weary people of Kamaishi. In one part of the event people laughed with delight, while in another part, volunteer staff was listening to local residents quietly sharing about their lives.

Suzuki and Sugimura had another task during this event: to do graphic facilitation in the concurrently held First Town Re-Building Workshop for Kamaishi. This workshop was for citizens to discuss the recovery and rebuilding of Kamaishi City with the participation of architect Mr. Toyoo Ito and other experts and scholars. Suzuki and Sugiura, together with Eri Urayama, also a member of the FAJ as well as one of the core members of the event, used "visual control" to record what was said in the meeting on a large sheet of paper. That paper was then posted in the meeting room as a tool to show citizens of Kamaishi what was discussed in the meeting. One striking comment came from a participant who had also experienced the Great Hanshin Earthquake: "if we had had this method of capturing ideas on paper back then, Kobe's recovery might have taken a different path."

What does "Facilitation" make it possible to do?

After the two-day event in Kamaishi, Suzuki and Sugimura took time to discuss how they could support disaster recovery through facilitation. This very theme had been visited repeatedly by Tokuda and Endo since the launch of the Disaster Recovery Support Section in the FAJ. This was a new step for the FAJ as an organization to engage itself in supporting severe large-scale disaster recovery. But looking back on those two months, is it really possible to say that we provided facilitation in a way that supported disaster recovery? Was what we did in Kamaishi over those few days really facilitation? Obviously, there are no immediate answers to these questions. Ultimately, our support activities are also a process for us to pursue answers to these questions.