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The Great East Japan Earthquake Relief Activities [2011/04/18]
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The Great East Japan Earthquake Relief Activities Activities of Tsuna Pro Tsuna Pro, a shortened form for the Project for Supporting Disaster Victims through Networking with NPOs, was founded on March 14 after the earthquake and tsunami disaster as a network of NPOs in Sendai, Tokyo, Kansai, and other parts of Japan. Tsuna Pro dispatched a total of 400 volunteers to Miyagi Prefecture, spending 3 weeks visiting some 600 evacuation shelters, starting from March 28, and assessing the situation in the evacuation shelters. To address the emerging issues of nursing care, healthcare, and care for people with disability, non-Japanese victims, and patients of rare diseases locally, the project is making efforts to match NPOs with specific expertise with people in need of the expertise. As the project’s managing organization, The Nippon Foundation is cooperating in being a part of the solution. While the situation in the evacuation centers is changing from one day to the next, I report on the results of our assessment and analysis as of April 10, as shown below. 1. Meals * Improvement is being made through handing out of cooked foods and arrival of relief, but servings of meat, fish and vegetables are negligible at 1.2 meals a day on average. They continue to subsist on a diet composed mainly of bread, rice balls, and instant noodles. * Progress has not been made in the preparation of foods for the elderly, diabetes patients, and people with allergies, and in the supply of powdered milk. * Evacuation shelters without supply of meat, fish and vegetables are often characterized by lack of information, especially with shelters not officially designated as evacuation shelters, and by unavailability or partial availability of utilities. 2. Healthcare and sanitation * The risk of mass infection of influenza and norovirus is rising. The lack of partitions in the living space and poor sanitary conditions appear to be the causes. * The conditions of the toilet depend on the water supply and drainage. In areas where the sewerage has not recovered, the waste matter is collected only 2.1 times a week, creating poor sanitary conditions. * In terms of toilet use by the elderly and people with difficulty walking, 64% of the evacuation shelters have problems meeting those needs. 3. Facilities * Only slightly more than 20% of all evacuation shelters have partitions and changing rooms, raising privacy concerns. As about 30% of the shelters do not even have television or telephone, access to information needs to be improved. 4. Elderly and people in need of nursing care * The percentage of the elderly (65 and over) per evacuation shelter rose slightly from 34% at last week’s count to 36% this week. * People requiring nursing care can be found in 38% of all evacuation shelters. The percentage of evacuation shelters with five or more people requiring nursing care is 5.5%. * Of the evacuation shelters with five or more people requiring nursing care, special considerations are given in terms of meals and so on, if the shelters were originally nursing homes. In other facilities, such as schools, the care is not sufficient. 5. Children * Only 7.5% of evacuees are under 18 years of age. However, only 9% of the evacuation shelters have space for mothers and infants and only 12% have a supply of powdered milk. Improvements are needed in these areas. 6. Non-Japanese evacuees * After two weeks’ survey, 108 non-Japanese evacuees have been identified at 21 evacuation shelters. Many of them are Chinese. The above assessment revealed that the conditions of the toilet and the availability of powdered milk at only 12% of the evacuation shelters were of particular concern. To address these problems as quickly as possible, The Nippon Foundation requested the help of the NPO Chek (headed by Representative Director Kenji Kaneko) for the use of Nihon Safety Company’s “Wrappon,” an automatic toilet that disposes waste matter without the use of water. For the powdered milk, we requested the cooperation of Mama-Mo Entertainment. “Stand for mothers” http://stand-for-mothers.net/ To help mothers and children suffering from the Great East Japan Earthquake, a network of young mothers with children from around the country, such as the I Love Mama magazine, mothers working as fashion models, and companies working with mothers is collecting and sending relief goods, with their sympathies and love, that mothers in the stricken areas need the most. This blog will also report on their efforts. http://ameblo.jp/stand-for-mothers Jichi Medical University alumni project for dispatching physicians to the disaster-hit areas reported many patients vomiting blood from stress-induced gastric ulcers, which is rarely seen today. With the prolongation of evacuation, their report pointed out the importance of implementing measures against geriatric tuberculosis and infections. It concurred with Tsuna Pro’s assessment that improvement in sanitation and environment was urgently needed. Needless to say, our assessment will need to be expanded to Iwate and Fukushima prefectures as soon as possible. |