JEN Coordinates Induction Course at Minamisanriku

RICHO’s new employees were trained at the town of Minamisannrikucho. This year makes the third year since the training program began, which has become familiar among people in the town.

A total of 223 trainees participated in the program this year, of which 113 participated in the first leg of the program held in April and 110 in May respectively. The trainees were divided into groups according to an area assignment to nine hama [fishing community] and each group engaged in fishing support activities for four consecutive days at the same hama such as shipping mekabu [holdfasts of seaweed], making anchors of farming rafts and so on.

【RICHO’s new employees engaged in plucking mekabu from seaweed.】


【After returning to their hotel, they review the day’s activities and redefine their goals.】


The trainees’ earnest attitude toward whatever they do have moved the people in the communities to wait for them to come every year. The program provides not only the communities with contributions in human resources but both the communities and the trainees with a priceless opportunity to learn from one another.

On the final day of the activities in May, the Shizugawa branch of Miyagi Prefecture Fishery Cooperative awarded RICHO a letter of appreciation for its three-year-long fishery support activities. Mr. Sasaki, the chair of the Shizugawa branch, said “Thanks to your assistance, Minamisanrikucho’s fishery is moving gradually toward recovery: We’ll keep on working until our recovery is accomplished.”

【The trainees participated in April said goodbye reluctantly to fishermen：Moto-hama, Omori-hama】


【The trainees were hard at work, producing as many as 2,300 sandbags in four days: Mitobe-hama】


【The trainees took a picture with Arashima Island in Minamisannrikucho in the background.】


It’s getting harder for the trainees who visit “quake-and-tsunami-hit areas” for the first time to understand the areas’ true faces because debris has been completely removed and they can see nothing to prove that they are in the areas but huge earthworks. Working on site together with locals, listening to storytellers, getting a smell of the salt, and hearing the sound of the wind, they were able to gain a great opportunity to see today’s Tohoku by themselves. That must have provided the trainees a learning environment and make a formative effect on their life in the future as members of society.

Even after the training, JEN wishes them to continue thinking of the future of the quake-and-tsunami-hit areas and feeling sympathy for people confronted with difficult situations in the world.

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