A place where people can visit everyday

As I see everybody getting older, it makes me feel that quite long time has passed since the disaster, even though at the same time it seems like a flash.

Were there any changes in the trainees like Ai or Shoko after the disaster?

Kumai: One thing is that members have changed, but more than that some trainees like Ai has started taking leadership. She was 20 years old and soon will become 26.

What the previous director and I tried to achieve was to make our facility a place where persons with disabilities, who otherwise stayed at their houses, could come every day.

Just before the disaster, we started to receive young ones who had recently graduated from special-needs schools. That made the group at our facility a good mixture of long timers and new comers. Most of our trainees suffer serious disabilities but they also grow quite well. For example, ones who used to have self-harming behaviors grew and started to take leadership roles.

These are changes that have been formed through group works, I guess.

Kumai: I remember some of them were always sleeping and not doing their tasks. We can’t tell how young people grow.