A decision, and the future

The month after the disaster, we were able to rent a space in the Tagajo Elderly Welfare Center and reopen our facility. It was supposed to be just until September, but we somehow got them to extend it until December. Then one day we happened to find a newspaper article about a suitable property and moved into the Recovery Park (in Sony’s Sendai Technology Center) in January the following year.

We had hoped to find a place and rebuild in 1-2 years, but we just couldn’t find a location or land to move to. We did consider our original location, but then we thought, what if the same thing happens again? We wanted a place we could feel safe, where no tsunami would come, and so it was rough going finding the right place.

However, we were being pressured to make a decision to rebuild or demolish Sakuranbo and Ouka  by June. It was a big decision, but we ended up deciding not to rebuild in the same place.

We had lost everything, but we were strangely at peace because we were all together. We were able to find the will to keep going step by step. We staff do this job (social work) because we like it. We had to keep supporting our facilities. We had to be the voices of our trainees. It was like having a message to share brought us together.