A departure ceremony for student volunteers dispatched by the Nippon Foundation was held to support people with disabilities who had evacuated from Ukraine following the military invasion of Russia, and left for Poland, a neighboring country of Ukraine.

The departure ceremony was held in Tokyo on the 30th, and 25 of the 230 people who applied for the Japan Foundation Volunteer Center attended.



At the ceremony, Ichiro Kabazawa, Managing Director of the Foundation, said, "I don't think we have been able to go out in Japan or overseas due to the influence of Corona, but I hope it will be a valuable experience to know how the world is moving now."



On the other hand, Rinka Saito (19), a second-year student at Waseda University, who will be sent to Poland for about two weeks on behalf of volunteers, said, "I was born with deafness, but I evacuated as one of the disabled. It's painful just to imagine how anxious and emotional people are, and I want to reduce the inconvenience and inconvenience of life. "



According to the Foundation, there are about 2.7 million people with disabilities in Ukraine and some have fled the country, but the support seems to be poor and the students work with local NGOs based in Krakow, southern Poland. However, it also supports people with disabilities and children, and distributes medicines and groceries.



The Foundation plans to dispatch 105 student volunteers by around October, and plans to recruit more in the future.

Participating student volunteers "I want to do everything I can"

One of the student volunteers, Rinka Saito of Waseda University, has a hearing disability by nature, but wants to support people with disabilities who have been forced to evacuate from Ukraine, so this time she volunteered. I applied.



Saito-san was born deaf at all, and since she was one and a half years old, she has been wearing a "cochlear implant" in her left ear that converts her sound into an electrical signal and conveys it to her brain. increase.



Since I have been trained in hearing, it may be difficult to hear people's voices in noisy places, but there is almost no inconvenience in daily conversation, but the reason is that I have hearing impairment so far. In addition, he has experience of being opposed to running for class representatives and studying abroad.



Since she became a university student, she has participated in seminars that listen to experts in various fields and think about support for persons with disabilities beyond the boundaries of the university, and will be an international organization in the future. I am aiming to work at.



This time, there are people who are based in Poland and have mental support such as assisting people with disabilities to move in wheelchairs, playing with children with autism, and deafness. It means to make use of my own experience to give advice on how to improve the environment for living in an evacuation center.



Mr. Saito said, "Ukraine, the word" support for persons with disabilities "came into my eyes and I thought it was my mission to participate. I had the experience that I couldn't do what I wanted to do just because it was unprecedented. I have been very frustrated. I think that it is because I am a person who has been keenly aware of the difficulty and rigor of living due to disabilities, so I understand the feelings of Ukrainians in difficult situations and help them. I want to do everything I can. "