History of establishment
Introduction of the process leading up to establishment and activities we are aiming for.
The Kumamoto earthquake occurred in the middle of April 2016. Shortly afterwards, Katsu Tobai who was the representative founder asked foreign children support organizations in Nagoya via SNS.
“It is difficult to go to the afflicted areas of the Kumamoto earthquake right now. However, there must be something we can do for victims even staying in Nagoya. In this area, I think there are many people who can interpret. If you have any information, please let me know.”
In response to her suggestion, on April 29, volunteers such as NPO gathered in Nagoya and held a meeting to think about support for foreign victims affected by the Kumamoto earthquake. At that time, Kumamoto Prefecture stopped accepting volunteers and supporting supplies from outside the prefecture. While we were collecting information about Kumamoto and proceeding with the discussion, we faced this question; “Have we gotten enough preparation for the Nankai Trough Great Earthquake that is said to occur in the near future?” The topic shifted to disaster measures in this region. And our predecessor “Preparatory committee for ‘Foreigner Support Network for Disasters in AICHI NAGOYA’ ”was founded on that day.
After that, founder members went to Kumamoto and joined support for affected areas. To report its support activities, we held the "Foundation Preparation Forum for Foreigner Support Network for Disasters in Aichi-Nagoya" at the Nagoya International Center on June 1st, 2016. Despite weekday night, more than 100 people attended our forum and we realized many people are interested in support for foreigners in case of disaster.
Since then, we held preparatory meetings at several places such as Nagoya in July, Higashiura-cho Chita in September and Inuyama in November to collect opinions toward formal establishment in December. Through this three meetings, 167 people attended in total. As we visited various areas and asked many people’s opinions, the shape of the network required in this region gradually became clear.
The activities of the network are not just for "at the time of a disaster".
Foreigner should not only be "supported by someone" but they can also "support someone".
Those opinions were commonly suggested at three meetings and we changed name of organization form “Foreigner Support Network for Disasters” to “Disaster Prevention Network for Multicultural Society in AICHI NAGOYA” on 6th November.
Having based on Aichi and Nagoya, our network will work with various organizations and people in Aichi Prefecture to promote "enlightenment of disaster prevention" and "disaster support".
Regardless of differences in languages, cultures and nationality, we would like to build the network with the keyword "multicultural disaster prevention" so that anyone can be interested in "disaster prevention" and "to support each other in case of disaster".