Iwate’s First Children’s Cafeteria

We are going into the fifth year of the earthquake.
Despite remaining scars of the earthquake on the ground, you can see variety of efforts toward recovery going on there. JEN is putting its efforts into the recovery by giving financial and technical assistance to four partner organizations involving in unique activities to address those who tend to be left behind by the recovery.

In Iwate Prefecture, JEN has been in partnership with “INCLU IWATE”, a NPO dedicated to helping single-parent households, to support their initiative “Children’s Cafeteria” since its launch in January, 2016 at Morioka city.

Although over 80 percent of single-parent households in Japan have a job, more than half of them are living in poverty and single parents, being chased by time, are apt to be isolated from society. In Morioka you can see such single-parent households who moved from the coastal regions after the earthquake and began to rebuild their life there.

The initiative “Children’s Cafeteria”, launched by INKLU IWATE to change such present situation in which single parents and their children are prone to be socially isolated, provides the single-parent households with not only free meals but comprehensive support including information and consultation service, learning support for children, helping them negotiate with local governments to improve their situations, accepting the donation of cooking ingredients from individuals and corporations and so on.

They are also going to open “Children’s Cafe” in affected coastal areas.

Their activities were taken up by the Iwate-Nitsupo as a big story.

【A dietitian creates well-balanced menus. Many of the ingredients are donated by local farmers or NPO’s.】



【A private library also used as a day-care center in the daytime offers the place for the “Children’s Cafeteria.” Ms. Okubo (right), dietitian, Ms. Tochizawa (left), counselor, prepares a meal with volunteers’ help. 】





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