The Interaction Banquet

In JEN’s volunteer activity, a banquet for interaction and exchange between people in the villages and volunteers is held every time.
The place for the banquet is the Iketani village Meeting House called “Minoru Ikedan (Blooming Iketani)” in the centre of the village. 
This house was renovated last December and it is a symbol of restart of the village after the earthquake. (Here is a link to about “Minoru Ikedan”)

From morning to evening, after finishing the volunteer activity for the day and having dinner, we drink some alcohol or soft drinks with local people to foster friendships. 
Sometimes we are given a present by the local people. The present is that they sing for JEN volunteers the traditional celebration song called “Tenjin-bayashi”.
This is an enjoyable time for us to be told various things about the village.

In the party, the comments about the village and volunteer work were given by the volunteers through the friendly interaction between them and the local people. 
In fact, the conversation without any objective like this is extremely important. 
The people in the village are able to know about their own village in an objective matter through their impressions of the village and the toughness of work of agriculture.
Accumulation of these ideas sometimes bring some ideas for developing the village such as “What should we continue to value about this village?”.　　

In many ways, the interaction between the volunteers and local people is important. 
JEN would like people who will join the volunteer activity in the future to let the local people know about their impressions of Iketani in a friendly and honest manner.