Six months later, help is still needed

In June, my husband and I went to Noto Town in Ishikawa Prefecture to run a community event for children and families affected by the Noto Peninsula Earthquake. While we were there we interviewed a disaster relief nurse, Yumiko Yamanaka, about the situation six months after the disaster. Below is a translation of the interview.

Meet Yumiko Yamanaka

Yumiko Yamanaka is a registered nurse and specialist in disaster relief. She now coordinates relief work in Noto Town on the peninsula of the same name where the earthquake happened on New Year’s Day. Yumiko was greatly influenced by the major disasters that she lived through, which prompted her to train as a nurse and get involved in relief work.

When she was in high school, Yumiko heard and believed in the gospel through an American missionary, Mary Ellen Gudeman. As she describes it, her heart received the Bible message like a dry sponge soaking up water.

She lived through the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995, which hit her hometown of Amagasaki. Thankfully her family survived, and for months afterwards, Yumiko and her brother volunteered at an elementary school shelter in Kobe, doing relief work to support evacuees.

In 2005, a JR West train derailed and crashed through an apartment block in Amagasaki. Yumiko was so affected by the accident that she decided to become a nurse even though she was over 40 years old. She was still a nursing student when the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred in 2011. She was filled with a desire to run to the area, but she decided to stay and finish her nursing studies. After graduating, she worked in the intensive care unit for premature babies at a Christian hospital. During this time, she became aware of the need to care for parents and children who had anxiety after they were discharged from the hospital.

When the Kumamoto earthquakes struck in 2016, Yumiko left her job to help at a friend’s maternity hospital as a disaster relief nurse. But she never forgot her concern for parents and children after they left institutional care, realising that many needed ongoing care because of mental health issues and behavioural challenges such as Asperger’s and ADHD.

So from Kumamoto, Yumiko started a non-profit organisation called TetMet (てとめっと), meaning the hands (手 te) and eyes (目 me) of the health care specialist (a play on the first kanji for nursing 看護). This network seeks to provide support to parents and children affected by disasters, particularly specialized care for children with developmental difficulties as well as children and families in need of physical help. This nationwide network is made up not only of nurses but also people from various skill backgrounds. It is an organisation to provide necessary, targeted support in disaster areas to those who need it, both in the immediate aftermath and in the long term.

What is your job now?

This year, after the Noto earthquake, I came here to help in the relief work and continued growing the TetMet network. Once here, I met members of the Japan Overseas Cooperative Association (JOCA), and now I am working for them as a manager. My job is to assist the town hall staff in providing relief for citizens. Right now, I help oversee the temporary housing and provide community support (there are 8 locations with 441 temporary houses). We are also working on improving the environment of the evacuation shelters.

I have a team of volunteers, and our work is to serve as a contact point for people currently living in temporary housing to communicate any problems they may be having in their daily lives. So we liaise between them and the town office.

What’s the state of things at the moment?

Noto Town is smaller than Suzu City and Wajima City, so it is easier to move around, and connections have been restored for electricity and gas. But in many places, water has not been reconnected yet, side streets from roads to individual houses have not yet been fixed, and sewerage is still not working. Many people are elderly and live alone, so they are unable to help themselves or each other. Therefore, support from outside the town is necessary. But there is not much media coverage, and so little support comes from the outside. The cleanup and rebuilding work is very slow.

Because JOCA has been active here since the disaster struck, we have been able to build trust with both the townsfolk and local authorities. The people in the town hall can rely on us to work well, and we support the town hall so that they can operate well.

What kind of help do you provide?

We are in the position of being directly involved with the residents, listening to their problems and responding to them. We play with children, do health exercises with elderly people, hold tea parties, and help look out for the residents. We visit the people in temporary housing to see how they are doing and encourage them. There is great need for support for mental health as people continue to live in very difficult and isolating situations, now for several months. JOCA also helps people move out of condemned houses into temporary houses or go back to get things out of houses that people can no longer live in.

How can people help?

Everyone here feels a bit forgotten and are weary. It would be a great encouragement to send a thank-you to those who have been working here for a long time; the people who are caring also need to be taken care of. The town hall staff are also victims of the earthquake, but they have not had a break since the disaster. Many of their houses were damaged, and they continue to live without basic services. The JOCA staff and volunteers have been serving since January. If we could care for them, they would be able to continue caring for the people.

Your church or mission could show love and support by something as simple as sending a box of individually wrapped snacks. Eating while talking helps to create a relaxed atmosphere and makes it easier to share in conversation, so snacks would be helpful.

Also, if you’d like to come and help, you don’t need any special skills. The kind of encouragement that people need is simply what most Christians do each time they meet together—just be able to ask an elderly person, “How are you today?” You could also run a kids club, play music, or cook for a group of volunteers or older people who have eaten mostly bento since January.

How can Christians/the church witness in this kind of situation?

JOCA is not a Christian organization, so we don’t do events with a gospel message or hand out tracts. But I believe that showing love to others as a Christian goes a long way to helping them become interested in the God who loves us. If people come to help, there are many personal opportunities to share our motivation for caring when people ask, “Why are you caring for us in this way?” We can reply, “Because my God cares for me, and he cares for you too!”

What can Japan Harvest readers pray for?

Please continue to lift your hands in prayer. We need people to spread the message about the current situation here. Although the media has forgotten and people tend to think that the Noto Peninsula disaster is over, I want everyone to know that this is not true.

Please pray there would continue to be people willing to come to Noto to support the disaster relief operations.

Pray that the necessary support will be delivered in a timely manner to where it is needed. Pray for the people, wisdom, and opportunities to be in place.

Pray for the physical and mental support of staff who are in the area for long periods of time. The people in the town hall are exhausted. There has been no place to escape for them. Please help them to be protected both mentally and physically.

If you, your church, or other Christian group would like to volunteer in Noto or send a package to Yumiko, please contact Chie at: seahorsesoccer@yahoo.co.jp
For further information, please go to the てとめっと Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/saigaikanngo

Photos submitted by author