Story: Ishinomaki Shoshinkai Foundation, Kujira no Shippo Vocational Support Center for the Disabled
Trainee: Ms. Ayako Ogawa (woman/ age 29 at the time/ mental disability)
Manager: Ms. Kayoko Abe
Employee: Mr. Takamasa Tada
Kujira no Shippo Group Home Himawari, Life Support Staff Ms. Yasuko Abe
When you saw the staff managing the shelter, did you feel like you had to do something?
Ogawa: Umm…
Kayoko: I don’t think they even had time to think about it. We (the staff) were responsible for some severely disabled people, so we had to protect them first. We didn’t know if our own families were okay, and we didn’t know what had happened to the families of our physically handicapped users or our users in wheelchairs, either. And so Ms. Ogawa and others who would jump into action with one or two words from us helped us out. The ones who took action right away listened to us attentively.
The situation was so urgent that it was like, they had to do it for everyone else. We also had severely handicapped people to think about, so I think their thought process was that they didn’t want to be any trouble. She (Ms. Ogawa) also had parents and siblings in the region, and I’m sure she was worried. But she never said anything about that, and just kept working hard without even making a face.
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