Look back

Remembering the disaster

It depends on the person, so we can’t do it with everyone, but we sometimes do talk about the disaster with our trainees.

One person who used to be absent a lot before the disaster started coming to Nozomi every day after entering temporary housing, but then started being absent again as soon as their house was rebuilt.

With people like that it’s sometimes better to help them remember the momentum they had right after the disaster, but there are also people it’s best not to breach the subject with. It’s hard to judge.

It’s fine for the trainees who are communicative enough to express their feelings, but you never know how it was for the ones who don’t talk about it.

Some families have told us their disabled family members have had nightmares since the disaster. So it’s affected them in different ways. We’ve come this far with all the care we could give them, but they also need our support with post-traumatic stress disorder. We haven’t provided enough of that, I’m afraid.