Come molti sanno Lunaria collabora da anni con associazioni giapponesi. Il presidente di NICE Japan, Kai, ci sta tenendo aggiornati sulla situazione. Kai prevede, non in questa fase di emergenza che è gestita dallo Stato giapponese, uno sforzo enorme nei prossimi mesi per fare fronte alle devastazioni che stanno colpendo il Giappone. Per il momento non è dunque possibile organizzare attività di solidarietà e volontariato in Giappone. Ecco un suo messaggio.
Dear all, This is Kai again 26 hours after I sent a mail below and just to update a few things. 1) For those staying in Japan now who does not understand Japanese language and has little access to the information (please pass this info. if you know any places to share effectively), http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/info/select.html http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/radio/program/16lang.html 2) In addition to what I mentioned yesterday, * We confirmed safety of all vols. joined recent projects (Kurogi, Maki) * All vols. of Minamata workcamp (starting today) are in very safe * We will start Nabari workcamp from 15 Mar. as planned. * Both of Minamata & Nabari are very very far from the area affected, so please tell you vols. and their families not to worry! 3) Thank you again for those who have sent encouraging messages and again, I cannot answer separately to each mail (will be same from now), but your good will is surely reaching our hearts. 4) From Monday, we start analyzing the situations and considering possible actions we could do by all the staff members, etc. but may take some days or more and actions might start after some weeks or even months. I will keep updating it to you. That's all for now. I wish your nice weekend (and again, those in difficult situations could be saved as much as possible...!) Kai Dear partners all over the world, As you many know, a giant earthquake hit the north eastern part of Japan today and the huge number of people have been affected by itself and also tsunami, fire accidents, etc. some of that may come even from now since additional earthquakes (much smaller scale though) are still continuously happened. First of all, I from the heart wish the situation will be improved as fast & better as possible and damage could be minimized. I was fortunately near my house when it was happened, so could pick up my kids quickly and staying at home. But as the electricity was stopping till 1-2 hours ago, so I could not connect with internet... As for NICE, all of our staff members and their families are in safe as well as all of the international volunteers joining our projects now. We are hosting 2 LTVs from France and Korea and have got confirmation of their safety from both of them (already informed their sending NGOs). We are running two short term workcamps (Ikata and Iwami-ginzan) both of which are located in the western part of Japan and very very far from the earthquake area, so should be no problem at all. We just finished two workcamps in Kurogi (on 07 Mar.) and Maki (on 09 Mar.) few of which volunteers might be still staying around Tokyo, but in general, the area around Tokyo is quite safe though some trains are still stopping. I appreciate to all of so many friend partners who have sent mails to us with worrying about the situation. It encourage us a lot! Excuse me not to be able to reply to each of you separately (I have put all of them in cc), and may not be able to reply to all of your mails (at least soon) from now, but I hope, you can understand it. It may be a bit too early to say about this (since we even don't know the whole picture of our damage yet), but for sure, we NICE will do our best to improve the situation and help people affected in a proper/ effective way & stage after some time and in such a case, we may ask your support by sending volunteers, etc.! * Well, our type of NGOs and projects can be generally more effective in a rehabilitation stage rather than the first, quick aid, but we anyway keep monitoring the situations and planning the possible actions. Best wishes Kai, on behalf of NICE as its President
