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What is Miyagi-Jonet?

MIYAGI JO-NET (Miyagi Women’s Support Network) is a non-profit organisation supporting women in the Tohoku area that was devastated by the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. We aim to connect the women in the affected areas with women and supporters from around Japan and the world. To this end, we are cooperating with various other women’s and relief organisations. Our many projects are designed to help women individually in reconstructing their lives and livelihoods. We thereby hope to brighten their everyday a little bit. We also collect relief/support goods and other donations to distribute them among the women and families affected by the disaster. Through regular meetings, our ‘salons,’ and consultations, we gain insight into women’s needs and concerns, and propose adequate measures to local and regional administrations.

Many of Miyagi Jonet’s members are women affected themselves by the disaster.


日本語　JAPANESE

19 Jun 2011

To the Members of Miyagi Jonet


I would like to thank you all for your support and encouragement. I am deeply grateful for your kindness.
3 months have past since the disaster. As the construction of temporary housing will be finished in about 10 days (at last!), people will be able to start moving in this month.

We attended a memorial service held in Higashi-Matsushima city on the 18th of June that was the 100th day after the disaster. Hoping the day to be a turning point in this aftermath, we are now about to start looking for future.

Even though Higashi-Matsushima city has been coping with the problems rather slowly, as you might have already found, we have not been completely numb with the shock but we have been thinking about reconstruction plans for the Tsukihama area.
We were, however, having communication problems while our internet connection was cut off.
Given this situation, there wasn’t actually much we could do. But we are fortunate to have assistance of some people who have access to the internet so that we are making efforts to prepare for various plans.

I have been appointed as president of the organisation called “Higashi-Matsushima Experience Network”. (You can find more about the organisation on our webpage.) Our organisation has proposed a plan “experiencing-tourism (in which tourists are encouraged to experience the local everyday life)” for Higashi-Matsushima’s tourism in future. This new tourism will be formed in 2 parts: conventional tourism based on sightseeing and the experiencing-tourism part, in which tourists can experience fishing village life. I believe that this new form of tourism will lead to new developments of the area.

Also, we have concluded that we need to start a scheme to get external support in order to reconstruct the area. 

The following are the contents of the scheme:
  1. We will launch Oku-Matsushima reconstruction project.
Under this project, we will start a unit-owner scheme in order for rapid reconstruction of Oku-Matsushima’s industry. (The project is to allow people to make financial contributions in units of 10,000 JPY to the area. Those who wish to invest in our project can become unit-owners.)
Though similar projects have been launched in other areas already and ours could be a rehash, we have concluded that we should accept external support, as there are already a number of people who wish to support us financially.
Owners can make contributions in units of 10,000 JPY. In return, we will either send them marine products (sea urchin, abalone, etc.) when the fishery industry is rebuilt or invite them to Oku-Matsushima and offer them fishery experience.
Owners can choose either of these two, depending on which area of Oku-Matsushima they wish to support.

  1. We will make specific reconstruction plans:
In fact our plan has already been submitted to the city committee and is being examined at present. It seems that Miyato will be the model district, where reconstruction works will first take place. For more details, please check our webpage.

If you have any suggestions or opinions about this, I would be happy to go to Sendai to discuss these ideas. Also, you can send emails to us: kaminoie@rose.ocn.ne.jp

Best Regards,

Katsumi Ono, the owner of Kami-no Ie













 



Map of reconstruction plan



Temporary Housing




















 
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