We have ended the collection of relief items. Thank you very much for all your contributions!

We received a great number of relief items, not simply from within Japan but also from all over the world, despite the fact that we had to change the list of needed materials on a weekly basis based on the quickly changing needs of affected communities.  We’re concluding this phase of our work for now—thank you so much for all your support! 

We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your understanding and flexibility to the changing needs and to the short deadlines for shipment that we had to ask of you. 

We hope that through the participation in the provision of relief items you were able to experience in some way the fast changes in people’s needs and living conditions during emergency relief.

This photograph captures a scene from the Ishinomaki office.  For a while we stored the received items in a large warehouse set up by the World Food Programme (WFP), but it would often quickly overflow, so we sometimes had to keep the boxes in a corner of our office.  Volunteers who came to help from all over the country were responsible for checking each of the items, organizing them by category, and making sure that they could be taken out as soon as they were needed. 

The “body warmer” (kairo) that we’d been collecting since the beginning of the relief activities were no longer necessary with the coming of spring, and the wet towels were also slowly becoming less important as the portable bathtubs started to come around the shelters.  A different kind of support, other than the distribution of items, is emerging as the next need.

JEN will continue to deliver the needed support to the needed places. 

We welcome your continuing support and contributions! 

(Photo: Volunteers who slept in their car because it was too cold in the tents)

Sludge removal volunteers:

Soup kitchen volunteers: