Call for Solidarity Support to Kumamoto, Japan.
2017-06-06
Kumamoto damaged by a series of earthquakes.
In April 2016, a series of earthquakes including one measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale struck and caused tremendous damage to Kumamoto Prefecture. The catastrophe was followed by heavy rain, resulting in 157 deaths and approximately 140,000 houses damaged in all. Kumamoto City was certified the first Fair Trade Town in Japan in 2011, and three years later it hosted the 8th International Fair Trade Towns Conference. The deadly quakes, however, shook and destroyed the Fair Trade shop “Love Land” which served as the head office of the Fair Trade Steering Committee of Kumamoto. No one was hurt fortunately, but the Committee had to stop all its work. Yet the resources for any activities are still very much constrained.
At this juncture of the one year anniversary, we are launching a new initiative “All Kumamoto Fair Network” for “creative recovery” that seeks to enhance social and economic fairness on top of simple rehabilitation. It is meant to be, first of all, a system to support organic farmers and people with disabilities in the earthquake-affected area, and to expand markets for them throughout Japan. The ultimate goal is to make Kumamoto a model society of sustainable production and consumption that is fair for both producers and consumers.
To be more specific, the Initiative aims to :
1. establish equal relationships between producers (organic farmers and handicapped people) and consumers,
2. make the whole prefecture of Kumamoto fair, ethical, and sustainable, and
3. encourage businesses and citizens to participate in creative recovery activities in a fair trade way.
In order to carry out the Initiative, we badly need to rebuild the hub office of the Fair Trade Steering Committee of Kumamoto. For that purpose, we call on all the Fair Trade Towns in the world to provide with us solidarity support preferably in multiples of €50.
For more information and practical support, see the web site here.
When you have accessed the page and finished donating, would you please kindly notify us through the Face Book page? We will, in turn, inform you of the receipt.
We hope this would develop into a good example for mutual solidarity support among some 1,900 Fair Trade Towns in the world for cases of disaster, emergency, or dire need of any kind in the future.
Thanking you in advance for your understanding and heart-felt solidarity support, I remain
Sincerely Yours,
Shoko Akashi
Chief of Board of Directors
Fair Trade Steering Committee of Kumamoto
For the Fair Trade Town Steering Committee
Mr Tatusya Watanabe
