Preparing to rebuild the workshop

On March 30th, the trainees and staff who were able to come went around and reported on the status of the workshop. At that time, everyone knew about Arahama from the newspapers and such.

I guess because people already had an idea of the situation in Arahama, when we told them the workshop had been washed away and only its foundation was left, they were just like, “Oh, I see.” And they didn’t say anything more.

We also reported to our trainees that our farmland had been flooded and was unusable, that neighbors had died, and that all their crafts and materials had been lost.

We figured reporting the situation was the place to start. Our trainees are the focus of our organization, so it wasn’t just about the intentions of the management. We didn’t want to rebuild on our own without consulting the trainees.

So after explaining to them that we had no support, only two staff members, and no funds to rebuild now, we asked our trainees, “We have no idea where we would rebuild it, but should we rebuild the workshop?”

Then our trainees said, “Let’s build the workshop. We need it.”

With that sentiment, we reported to the city government and our foundation that we were going to rebuild the workshop, and started taking action.

It was important to us to move forward alongside our trainees.