HBS Students Visited Ishinomaki –Second Day

On Sunday, January 8th, it was the second day of Ishinomaki-visit by Students from Harvard Business School (HBS). On that day, they jointed in volunteers from Rissho-kosei-kai and individual volunteers and worked together, so that there were 45 volunteers in total.

The task on that day was removal of　a plum tree and plastic green house in Watanoha area. That land enable to be used as a farm again, however, the owner would like it to re-born as raw-land and kindly requested JEN to do the volunteer task.

They have long waiting list of children to enter nurseries, although there are some nursery around. By making raw-land at that land, there are some possibilities to construct kindergartens and nurseries to meet the needs of local government and each organization in the furture.

[To knock down the frame work of plastic green house]

The work was carried out with spades and pickax brought from JEN Volunteers’ rest house (Watanoha rest house) which is located near the land.

As for the cutting plum tree, firstly we broke the branches but the tree had not died down so that the task was very tough.

Next, for removing the root, although it was big job with digging hole for wide area, the volunteers helped each other and completed before noon.

JEN staff wish the re-born land would be used efficiently in the future.

[Struggling with removing plum tree’s roots]

[Pile of the removed roots]

In the afternoon, HBS students moved to Ayukawa which is located at the top of Ojika peninsula. The project site was near the temporary commercial avenue “Oshika-noren-gai” which was opened middle of last November.

The work was begun with weeding, then they removed and separated of the small rubbles and rubbish.
After aploximately 2-hour work, they made 2 big piles. The pile included big staff such as tires and fridge, and the boards with nails, so that they need much attention for their safety.

[Rubbish taken out one after another]



There are few houses and Oshilka-noren-gai around the cleaned place. JEN believe that the cleaned place would be a step of bright future for the residents and people come to the commercial avenue. JEN will continue volunteer activity.

[The result of the volunteers’ work]