Report on 4th Day: Collaboration in DRR Between NPO and Community
A seminar, “Reassurance in Living with Connectedness”, reporting on DRR case studies of collaboration between NPO and the community, was held on 17th March at the Sendai City Civil Activity Support Center. It was organized by “Bosai kara Machizukuri wo Kangaeru” committee. 35 people turned up for the event.
Haruyoshi Osada (56), secretary general of Hamamatsu NPO Disaster Relief Collaboration Committee, asserted, “With proper collaboration between NPO and the community, we will be able to reach out to everyone, leaving no one behind, during a disaster.”
This Disaster Relief Collaboration Committee was established in September 2012. Bounded by a disaster relief contract with Hamamatsu City, when a disaster strikes, this committee provides relief support including social welfare for the physically disabled or the elderly who are left out of evacuation centers.
The establishment was sparked by a story heard from a NPO staff, who worked in the disaster stricken areas after the Great East Japan Earthquake. He sent requests to the local government for tables needed at an old folks home, but the whole process was constantly delayed until a month later when the NPO had to arrange for themselves. It was then when he felt that collaboration between NPO and local governments is indispensable in order to realize speedy and prompt relief support.
NPO Disaster Relief Collaboration Committee
Nagata and his team cooperate with various NPOs doing relief support in order to realize effective and efficient relief support. Receiving help from an application making company, they established their own community site online. This online site allows the sharing of information among cooperating organizations on the “when, where, who, what and how” of relief support. “Even though we have managed to cooperate effectively between the local government and the community, it still remains a challenge for us how we can manage the funds and spread this collaborative working style to the whole country”.
Nagata from the Disaster Relief Collaboration Committee, working on a project educating and grooming the next generation on DRR, with students from Hamamatsu City in the disaster stricken areas of the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Other speakers include Takako Koiwa (62) from “Hot Net in Higashi Nakata”, Mitsumasa Aoyagi (47) from Nippon Foundation. All of them stressed the importance of collaboration among the community, local government and NPOs, based on their respective experiences.
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During the Great East Japan Earthquake, NPOs and NGOs were treated as volunteers. NPOs and NGOs are not volunteers, but relief support professionals. They can deliver speedy and effective relief support to people in need of help. Nagata hopes that effective collaboration with local governments can lead to more efficient relief support throughout the country. In order to achieve that, we need to fully understand the functions and activities of NGOs and NPOs.
Reporters:
Miyabi Umemura, 3rd Year at Doshisha University
Shihori Saito, 2nd Year at Tohoku Gakuin University
