Project Overview
Tamba city is located in the east side of Hyogo Prefecture, neighboring with Kyoto Prefecture, Sasayama city, Taka municipality, and Asago city. The city is within the vicinity of 90-minute travel from Osaka and Kobe.
With the foreseen challenges of depopulation and aging population, Tamba city aims at revitalizing communities not only by a mere increase in the resident population through relocations, but also by welcoming short-term repeat visitors from outside the city as ‘nonresidential population.’
The city is only 15 years old as a city, but actually boasts attractive resources that have been inherited for generations.
About the 2014 Torrential Rain Disaster
From August 15 to 18, 2014, a stuck weather front got collided by a low air pressure along with warm moist air from the South over Hyogo. The low air pressure and warm moist air made the weather front active, causing the atmosphere to be severely unstable, and downpour of rain hit Kita-Harima area and Tamba area.
Ichijima-cho in Tamba city, to be specific, experienced the largest rainfall across the city. It experienced 450mm of rain within 24 hours, or as much as 100mm per hour. The amount of rainfall varied from district to district – the rain was extremely intensive and massive in a very small part of the city.
The massive rain caused debris flows from the mountains, striking flat low-lying residential/agricultural areas and blocking river flows, inundating houses and agricultural facilities/paddy fields.
However, compared to the intensity of the disaster, damage to human lives was minimum. This is said to be because of highly developed helping networks in the community that encouraged early evacuation.
SEEDS Asia’s projects in Tamba
SEEDS Asia first visited Tamba city with delegates from the Philippines Department of Education for a field visit, to hear how the most affected school by the disaster took steps forward towards recovery. Upon the visit, a collaborative education recovery project was discussed between SEEDS Asia and the city government.
Education project with the Board of Education
This project was implemented in partnership with the Board of Education of Tamba city. Seeking unique ideas from selected schools, a standard model of Tamba-style disaster risk reduction education was developed, for a city-wide rollout. The model emphasized a collaborative approach with the community, taking into consideration the teachers’ limited knowledge about the locality. It turned out that residents in Tamba are well knowledgeable, and willing to help students learn about their hometown. Printed and video materials were also produced to supplement the disaster education model.
City Promotion project
For depopulating Tamba city, increasing visitors from outside is one key approach to sustain its presence. This urged the city to plan a ‘City Promotion’ strategy including branding and promotion of local products, and lessons learned from the torrential rain disaster is considered a tool to invite learners of disaster risk reduction. SEEDS Asia partnered again with the city government to establish a mechanism of hosting visitors, using abundant resources of people, nature, local customs, and learning from disaster experiences.
SEEDS Asia and local groups capable as story-tellers had numerous meetings and trial ‘study tours’ to host university students and anyone who was willing to learn.
Hyogo Voluntary Plaza-funded project
This was a succeeding project of the City Promotion project. Shifting from disaster-focused visits, this project aimed at reframing the resources of Tamba from the viewpoint of Sustainable Development Goals. Paying respects to the traditional customs of the local residents, now tours included farming experiences, camping, etc. with a vision of fostering capable children who will be able to address global challenges of climate change and take small actions.