Junior High School Students Exposed to the Naganuma Spirit [Nagano/Japan]
On 7th October, a Naganuma-based community organization, “Hope Apple,” invited the Community Recovery Subcommittee of the Naganuma District Disaster Recovery Planning Committee to their special session for Grade 9 students of Tohoku Junior High School (some of whom actually live in Naganuma). The leader of the Subcommittee, Mr. Matsubara, and SEEDS Asia were given an opportunity to share the wishes and challenges of Naganuma’s residents.
Children will indeed be affected by the future impacts of climate change, which at the local level means that they will need to respond to increasingly severe and frequent weather disruptions. What happened in the past, and may happen in the future (for example, as proven by the floods due to Naganuma’s Chikuma river levee breaches in October 2019) is a concern for every child’s future, irrespective of their location. Therefore, it is essential for youth to engage in community development as members of their own hometown, along with the community’s adults, to ensure that proper choices are made to ensure safety from disasters.
We hope that the session made the students not only learn from the past but also consider global issues as their own, so that their ways of making choices and thinking about their own community will eventually have global benefits. We sincerely thank Hope Apple for this great opportunity and will look forward to continuously contributing towards positive impacts to the community!
[Translation of the original post by Hope Apple]
Junior High School Students Exposed to the Naganuma Spirit
Hope Apple and the “Oyashiki Hozon-kai (Mansion Preservation Society)” organized a session for Grade 9 students at Tohoku Junior High School on 7th October as part of their Comprehensive Learning Course. As the students were wishing to volunteer in activities in Naganuma district for disaster recovery from the Typhoon Hagibis floods, we planned this session to facilitate the students to learn about the history and culture of Naganuma, to hear from the residents, then to think about how they could contribute through volunteer activities. The venue was the Yonezawa Mansion, which is still under process of recovery from flood damage.
First part of the session was hosted by Mr. Hideyuki Miyazawa with the theme “Could-have-been of Naganuma if history were…” with many interesting episodes that involved famous historical figures from 400 to 500 years ago. This was followed by Mr. Kazuho Amari, representative of the Mansion Preservation Society, who introduced how the district has survived a number of disasters since the Meiji era, and how the local residents overcame difficult times by shifting their main industry from sericulture to apple production. This dynamic history was revealed by analyzing clues found in the Yonezawa Mansion, proving that this historical building is an “untelling storyteller”.
The representative of Hope Apple, Mr. Akio Ota, encouraged the students to contribute to society using their own unique resources and introduced various opportunities available for volunteer activities.
Lastly, Mr. Hideji Matsubara from the Community Recovery Subcommittee of Naganuma District, and Ms. Mitsuko Otsuyama from SEEDS Asia, showcased the opinions of the residents collected through a unique form of questionnaire. The session was concluded with “thinking time” where respective students were asked to give their ideas of how they can volunteer. The session also included a brief site visit to the Yonezawa Mansion itself.