The slogan is "Can be done"-What you can do even if you can't go to the area affected by heavy rain

The slogan is "I can do it"-What you can do without going to the area affected by the heavy rain 20:56 on July 10th

Heavy rains have caused a lot of damage to various places. Especially in Kumamoto prefecture, the damage is great. However, even if you want to help something, the new coronavirus will get in the way. Because of the risk of infection, volunteers only accept people from within Kumamoto prefecture. So, now I'm looking for assistance that can be done in our daily lives without going to the disaster area.

The slogan is "what you can do, what you can do" or "dekokkotsuba, dekushiko". The Kumamoto word means "as much as you can". (Daisuke Narita, Yoko Ideue, Ken Memita, Reporter, Network News Department)

Cannot go to the disaster area

The damage caused by the heavy rain that occurred while working on infection control against the new coronavirus. In Kumamoto prefecture, basically volunteers are limited to people in the prefecture. There was also a voice from Twitter saying, "People outside the prefecture cannot participate in volunteering.

“What you can do, what you can do”

In the meantime, the words that people who are trying to support disaster areas such as Kumamoto on the Internet are "what you can do, what you can do" or "dekukkotsuba, dekushiko".

It is said that it became a slogan even after the Kumamoto earthquake four years ago. It means "to do what you can do (to support) within the limits of what you can do". So, first of all, I thought about what it means to be able to do things even if I am away now.

Deliver to victims, deliver to affected municipalities

One way is to support in the form of donations. First of all, donations and “money donation” to reach the victims.

If you transfer it to a dedicated account established by the affected prefecture, the Japanese Red Cross Society, a community chest, etc., it will be distributed to the victims. The amount of money you receive is determined based on personal damage and building damage. According to Kumamoto Prefecture, when the Kumamoto earthquake occurred, the first allocation was made one month after the earthquake, and the distribution is still continuing.

On the other hand, there is also a way to make a donation to the municipality you want to support. One of them is hometown tax payment. For example, a major intermediary site, Furusato Choice, has set up a dedicated page for donations to disaster-affected local governments from this month, and has so far donated nearly 200 million yen.

The usage of donations is left up to each local government, and in the past disasters, it has been used for repair costs of the damaged facilities, operation costs of evacuation shelters, and scholarships for victims unique to the local government.

By the way, since the disaster-affected local governments are busy with the work related to the disaster, local governments in each region are also providing "support to take over the work related to hometown tax payments." For example, Kamakura City, Kanagawa Prefecture.

We are accepting hometown tax payments to Hitoyoshi City, Kumamoto Prefecture on behalf of this month. Furthermore, on the 5th of the following day, we also decided to accept the surrounding 11 towns and villages such as Ashikita Town and Kuma Village. We support the reduction of paperwork by issuing donation certificates and sending donations to disaster-affected local governments.

Some of the people who donated said, "Thank you for the local people, I can't go home right away in Corona, it's a small amount, but I've done what I can do right now." is.

Heart support to prepare

The National Council of Social Welfare recommends support to prepare for volunteers after the situation has settled down. In collaboration with local councils, we carry out volunteer activities nationwide. For those who are thinking of volunteering, we are calling on the website, "Please do not go to the disaster area until there is a call from the disaster area".

One of the reasons is that the proportion of elderly people in the affected areas is high, and the spread of new coronavirus infections can be life-threatening. Then, we go to the site, ask the local people what kind of support they are looking for, and consider future volunteer activities that meet their needs.

Ryota Takahashi, Director, National Center for Volunteer and Citizenship Promotion, National Council of Social Welfare
"I feel frustrated because there are many people who want to go to the site and support me. Please keep thinking about the disaster area and support it. I want you to be prepared for activities.

How many times do you stand up

There is also support for using crowdfunding, an organization that supports the affected areas. For example, at the “Kumamoto dialect natives' association” with over 2700 members mainly in the Tokyo area, we are doing crowdfunding “STILL STANDING-KUMAMOTO” from 6th to 9th of this month.

Most of the native groups are from Kumamoto prefecture, and the rule is to speak only with the Kumamoto dialect. We have held social gatherings and, after the Kumamoto earthquake, carried out local recovery activities and sales of goods in the affected areas. This time we set up crowdfunding for the first time even though we could not enter the disaster area, and collected more than 4 million yen by the afternoon of 10th. The collected support money will be delivered directly to local governments and local organizations in Kumamoto Prefecture.

Chairman Hirano
“We are all surprised that heavy rains will hit us next to the Kumamoto earthquake and that “this will happen again...” but we can't lose. No matter what happens to Kumamoto, we have the strength to stand up again and again. Yes, I want to help."

Support to buy, support to know the charm

"I am reassured and grateful to know that there are so many people shopping to support Kumamoto Prefecture." This is what I heard at the Kumamoto Prefecture antenna shop "Ginza Kumamotokan" in Ginza, Chuo-ku. According to the store, the number of people visiting from the 7th this month, which was the first business day after heavy rain, increased, and the number of customers who had been depressed by about 20% due to the new coronavirus has increased to about 1.5 times the usual number. is.

In the product hall, the products of the local government, which suffered a great deal of damage, were collected in a prominent place near the entrance of the store. Some of the people who have purchased Hitoyoshi City's shochu and others are already out of stock.

"I is how? If you buy Which is? What the affected areas of the product."

"I do not drink I usually drink, but came we were to buy the Kuma shochu"

were some guests coming over such a voice to the clerk That's right. There were also people who bought shochu from a sake brewery who knew of the damage on SNS and news, and who were from Kumamoto prefecture and now live in Tokyo but want to buy a local soy sauce box in memory of their hometown. That's right.

When I visited, I found a donation box when I looked beside the cash register. The box is said to fill up almost every morning in the morning. A 40-year-old female customer from Kumamoto Prefecture said, “I think there is limited support from Tokyo, but I would like to get as much support as I can by buying one from Kumamoto.”

Miyuki Murasaki from the Kumamoto Prefecture Tokyo Office, who
is in charge of operating the antenna shop “I have lived in Hitoyoshi for 3 years and have a sense of the land, so the news of the damage makes me more painful. What can I do in Tokyo right now? I think that it is not only to make people sad but to create an opportunity to get to know the charm of the disaster area through special products.”

From next week, we will expand the booth that collects the special products of the disaster area.

Support to know the disaster area

At Shinzaga, an izakaya that serves local cuisine in Kumamoto Prefecture, located in Shibuya, Tokyo, we are planning to create a new sake menu with Kuma-shochu, which is made in areas where the damage was severe. The store manager Shinnosuke Chisamba is also from Kumamoto.

Sennami Manager
“Customers often ask me, “Kumamoto, it's hard,” but I don't think many people know Hitoyoshi City, which was the disaster area. I wanted to get it.''

The store is considering donating part of the sales of shochu.

Manager Senzamba
“When I wondered what I could do, I thought that it would be possible for us to become a window to let people know that the place where the damage was done is the place to make such wonderful sake.”

Even if they are far apart

One tweet caught my eye while thinking about what I could do even when I was away.

“We are in the midst of historic heavy rains. Please, please be prepared for floods.”

Kentaro Araki of the Japan Meteorological Agency, known as a cloud researcher. I usually post pictures of beautiful clouds, but nowadays I continue to call on my own Twitter to prepare for flood damage. The trigger was the heavy rain in Kanto and Tohoku in 2015. A junior high school, who gave a lecture on disaster prevention, was inundated and heard from participants that "this kind of thing really happens."

We want you to utilize disaster prevention information. Based on that idea, he thinks of support that he can take from his own perspective, and continues to send out information to prepare for unexpected situations.

Donation, buy, keep thinking, know, send.

There is surely a lot of support we can do even if we can't go.

I hope that the support of such small people will be accumulated to encourage the affected areas.