Voices from the Ground

April 9, 2011

On March 11, 2011 people in Japan and around the world watched horrifying scenes of giant waves engulfing towns along the coast of the Kanto and Tohoku regions of Japan just minutes after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck the country. In many cases, only vast empty swathes of mud or giant, senseless jumbles of debris were left where ordinary people once lived and farmed. To date, more than 420,000 people in Japan today remain displaced, and approximately 27,000 are dead or missing. The force of the disasters was tremendous, but the response to them from the international community and of people from other regions of Japan has also been extraordinary. When Peace Boat launched the Japan Tohoko-Kanto Emergency Relief Project and called for volunteers, offers for help began pouring in from inside and outside the country. Since March 16, Peace Boat has been teams to the city of Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture, including groups of volunteers who on a weekly rotational basis to help deliver and distribute aid, improve the environment of the 170 impromptu evacuation centres in the devastated city, and to provide hundreds of hot, nutritious meals per day to people both in these centres and those living in semi-destroyed homes or cars. Peace Boat has now established a blog, “Voices From the Ground” to provide firsthand accounts from those volunteering in Ishinomaki with Peace Boat’s emergency relief effort. We hope it will serve as an invaluable window not only into the project, but also into the experiences of volunteers as they help to provide emergency support and to rebuild the lives and community of the people of Ishinomaki. Read these first hand experiences “Voices from the Ground“