By Ita Pravitasari

Pravitasari is a senior student in Universitas Indonesia. Besides her major is psychology, she also spend her enthusiasm in another fields that excite and challenge such as philosophy, women's issues, child protection, disaster education, and youth's issues. Feel free to share your views about anything with her: [email protected] 

On this second memorial of the Great East Japan Earthquake 3/11, I would like to share my experiences when I visited Sendai city last summer. I had opportunity to hear stories directly from the survivors and their families about what happened during and after the tsunami struck Sendai. I also had opportunity to see the area that was destroyed by the tsunami. There are stories about grief, loss, and resurrection. Those are the stories behind debrises that  I had seen there.

When the tsunami struck, Junko was in the office which is located quite far from the coast.  However, her mother lived in a location that quite close to the beach so that even if she survived, she was very concerned about her mom’s condition. Shortly after she allowed to visit the area where her mother lives, she rushed to go there. When she got to the location where her home was, Junko saw her house was destroyed and she couldn’t find her mother there. Then from that day until a few days after, she traveled from one shelter to another shelter to look for her mother. She had doubts about whether her mom still alive or not. Fortunately, Junko finally able to find her mother in one of the shelters. Her mother told Junko that once she received a tsunami warning, she immediately rushed to the car and drive away from the house. Interestingly, after having met Junko, her mother told Junko to not be worrying about her and asked Junko to return to workplace because Junko works on the support center for foreign nationals who offers support and promotion to Miyagi citizens that are internationally active. Her mother consider that Junko must be able to also help foreign nationals who may be experiencing some difficulties after the tsunami hit.

Even so, not only sadness that was behind the ruins of the buildings in Sendai, but also amazing stories about how the Japanese  remain civilized despite of they’re being in the midst of difficulties. The story about the survivors that queue orderly while receiving aid already reported a lot. But,  I had never heard of this story that was told by Junko and for me this story was very evocative. Shortly after the tsunami struck, the survivors need foods and clean waters. At that time, many kombini or convenience stores like lawson, family mart, and 711 opened their warehouse and invited the survivors to pick up foods and drinks for free. Interestingly, a few months after the incident, many survivors returned to those kombini to pay for foods and drinks that they had taken though the kombini had confirmed that those foods and drinks was provided free of charge.

Like I said before, I also had time to see the area that was affected by very severe damages, including Yuriage secondary schools. At the front of the school, there was a table that contains text “maybe we can forget the tsunami, but we will not forget our 14 friends (who became victims in this incident).” This made ​​me realize that disasters may cause psychological problems and this sense was confirmed also by Mrs Iizawa, a member of  Tomodachi in Natori International Association, a volunteer group that involved in the provision of psychosocial support for the survivors.

In the end, I want to stated that behind the debrises in Sendai, stored a variety of stories. until now, from the news I read on the internet, the stories still exist. a story about loss, about healing efforts, and another stories which show to us that after the disaster struck, not only the buildings that collapsed but also the survivors. That’s why we need to build disaster resilience and I cite  Mr. President’s remarks who said that disaster resilience should be made as one of the national building blocks for sustained prosperity.

you can also access this writing at http://itapravita.wordpress.com/2013/03/10/311-the-stories-behind-debrises/

By: Haruya Nihei

In this my first article, I introduce my Japanese friends’ project, which is implemented this year. They participated in “Looking Beyond Disaster 2: UNESCO Forum” last year and made a project group and action plan called “Share Disaster Memories”, which is available on the Internet (UNESCO Bangkok). In order to proceed with the action plan they started to cooperate with another volunteer group consisted of Japanese members of YWCA (Young Women's Christian Association). This group has the experience of providing a meeting place to the victims in Fukushima, allowing them to communicate freely. Consequently they have shared their ideas in order to plan bigger projects and made up the new action plan which is called “Project: Connect the young voices from the earthquake disaster to the future”.

The other day I met Tsuyoshi Sotoya, who is the core member of the project as well as a participant of the LBD2 and interviewed about this project in detail. He is originally from Kobe, where there was a big earthquake in 1995, and now he is a university student in Tokyo. I will now introduce the overview of this project based on the interview with Tsuyoshi and their proposal paper.

Briefly, they offer the place where young victims and non-victims can meet and share the experiences of the disaster as well as the current situation of affected areas.

Through this project, they aim to accomplish:

1. Building a wide network of young people who would like to share their experiences and impressions of the disaster or the current situation of the affected area

2. Offering the place to let young people think together deeply about themselves and the future of their society

3. Long-term help for the victims and the affected areas

Then, why did Tsuyoshi’s group believe that these three points are needed for the victims and the affected areas? They judged it from the real voices of young people, both who was affected by the disaster and who was not.

There is the fact that people’s interest in the disaster has gradually faded away as time passed. But the affected areas have not been recovered yet and still need long-term help. Therefore, the victims would like to let other people know about the current situation and revive their interest to the state following the great disaster. There is also the fact that there are young people who have never experienced the disaster and want to know the circumstances regarding the tragedy, which they hardly know from media. Also, people who evacuated from Fukushima to other places after the disaster want to be updated about the situation in their hometown. Hearing those voices, the project group thought offering meeting places might satisfy their needs as well as let the victims tell someone what they have on their mind concerning the disaster and release the stored trauma.

Regarding the second point, the project group thought not only sharing their experiences but also thinking what they can do for their community might bring them to find a goal and hope towards their future.

Concerning the third point, time lets people forget what they have experienced and felt from the disaster, hence it is important to write down and record their memories in order to pass them on to the future generations.

The project group believes that this is what people need in Japan today and this project will satisfy those needs. The project group also received sponsorship from a Japanese foundation and will officially start to implement the project this year. The proposed regions to have the meeting spot are: Fukushima, Miyagi, Hyogo, Tokyo and Osaka at the moment.

With these final words from the interview with Tsuyoshi I would like to take the opportunity to wish them good luck and hope that they will achieve their goals.

Me: “Why did you start this kind of reconstruction work?”

Tsuyoshi: “Because I just wanted to be of help to the victims even if only slightly. And I myself have wanted to discuss about the society after the disaster and share the opinions with young people of my generation”

Please feel free to leave comments or suggestions to this project. It would help them a lot. And if you want to take part or get involved in the project, please contact us.