Foundations step in to help women rebuild Tohoku

Ten years since the Great East Japan Earthquake triggered a powerful tsunami that devastated the Tohoku region, its effects continue to reverberate among the most vulnerable populations in the region.

The calamitous effects of the disaster are reflected in Tohoku’s depopulation — a 40% decrease. Compounded by financial crises, it has fractured communities, leaving many people isolated in a deeply patriarchal environment that has become a breeding ground for violence against women, sexual minorities and children, incidents of which largely remain hidden.

Through the Reconstruction Agency, the Japanese government has supported many organizations dedicated to serving these populations. However, the agency recently announced it would reduce its annual budget by 93% during its next 10 years of operation. This dramatic cut has the potential to bring financial ruin to many organizations, thereby cutting off support to those who need it most.

In light of these circumstances, the United States-Japan Foundation and the Fish Family Foundation joined forces to provide a grant of ¥10 million ($75,000) to six women-led organizations, with the aim of building a resilient Tohoku for the future. Launched in March 2021, this women-led project has facilitated direct support to vulnerable populations, such as the elderly, children and youths, single mothers and those experiencing disabilities. By providing opportunities for employment and education to enhance economic literacy, the project has also empowered populations and enabled them to establish long-term independence.

Since its establishment in 1999, the Boston-based Fish Family Foundation has focused on providing support to immigrants, at-risk youths and people struggling with mental health. The foundation has also actively supported areas affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake through grants to nonprofit organizations operating in the region. For its most recent grant dedicated to Tohoku, the foundation partnered with the United States-Japan Foundation, which was founded in 1980 to enhance ties between Americans and Japanese.

In 2006, the Fish Family Foundation and its co-founder Atsuko Toko Fish established the Japanese Women’s Leadership Initiative (JWLI), which, through its JWLI Fellows Program, has fostered emerging female leaders through hands-on experience and training sessions in nonprofit management and leadership development. In 2017, JWLI established the Champion of Change Japan Award, which recognizes women who address pressing needs in their communities. Since 2019, JWLI has also run a three-day bootcamp on entrepreneurial leadership with the purpose of accelerating social change in communities in Japan. The leaders of the six recipients of the grant are all JWLI alumni: three Champion of Change Japan Award finalists and three JWLI Bootcamp participants.

A major goal of this project has been to lay the foundations for collaborative partnership between grantees. During an online session held on April 28, the six grantees joined representatives of the Fish Family Foundation and the United States-Japan Foundation to report on their activities and discuss how they intend to utilize their new collaborative network to create a resilient Tohoku.

One of the grantees, Rera — which provides transportation to the elderly and disabled to assist them in essential activities such as grocery shopping and hospital visits — utilized this collaborative network to strengthen its fundraising efforts while spreading awareness of its partners’ activities. Yuka Takahashi, founder of Switch — an organization that provides skill training, career coaching and academic support — also touched on the benefits of the collaborative network. “Working together and learning about our specific strengths has led to discussions about how we can assist each other,” she said. “This type of collective impact is something I hope to build going forward.”

Regarding future collaboration, Shoko Monma, founder of Mia Forza — an organization focused on alleviating food insecurity — hopes to have other representatives of grantees speak to students at Aoba Joshi Gakuen, a junior high school for incarcerated girls in Sendai with which Monma frequently collaborates. “I would love for the women leaders gathered here to share their experiences with these students,” she said. “It will surely expand their awareness of the choices available to them.”

Junko Yagi, founder of Community Space Umineko, an organization focused on economic revitalization through job creation for the elderly, also expressed excitement toward the future of their collaborative network: “It is so great that us coming together can bring happiness to many people, and I look forward to working with everyone into the future.”

These sentiments were also expressed by Yoshie Kaneko, founder of Yappesu — an organization dedicated to transforming the lives of women by imparting knowledge and tools needed to become independent entrepreneurs — and Rika Hamade, founder of 1mm Innovation, a nonprofit educational hub for women entrepreneurs.

Tomoyuki Watanabe, Japan representative of the United States-Japan Foundation, as well as Atsuko Fish, trustee of the Fish Family Foundation and founder of JWLI, also attended the online session. After listening to the discussions among grantees, Watanabe noted with great enthusiasm about how the network among grantees has deepened over the course of the project. In her closing remarks, Fish expressed her excitement toward the future of this collaborative network and her admiration toward the grantees’ unrelenting optimism. “I believe the foundations being laid here represent just the beginning of something very big for the future,” she said.