It's not even New Year's yet. It's only New Year's on the other side of the international dateline, but somehow everyone akemeshite omedetou-ing on Facebook makes me want to write a New Year's greeting early.
First of all, it's been a gift meeting every person who participated in HANDS this last year. I remember each one of you and think about you often. Thank you for your patience with the limits of our humble organization. Thank you for telling your friends about us. Thank you for caring enough to come.
Our leaders and our regular volunteers were very happy to meet all of you. They're so happy, they've started talking at me in English trying to practice so they can speak to you all. Please come back so they can stop speaking to me in English and practice on you instead. :D My Japanese is suffering.
I've had a nice two week vacation in another country--my country, Oregon!--and spent most of it completely slacking off volunteer-wise. Now it's almost time to return to my other country--Iwate, Japan!--back to my freezing apartment and my city, which is probably buried in snow, for volunteer: version 2012.
The first thing I need to do, other than email that one guy back, is to make a new entry here about what people can to help the coast, now, and update it regularly. The best way to for people to lose motivation and give up on a cause is for them to believe that there's nothing to be done anymore. There is absolutely something everyone can still do. Part of that something is yes, giving money, and another part is volunteering (volunteers! we are still taking them!) but there are other somethings. I will tell you about those soon.
I noticed during my two weeks in Oregon that it's like a tsunami-less, earthquake-less alternate universe. Maybe some of you reading this went home from Iwate or somewhere else in Tohoku and experienced the same thing. If that's the case, I know it's discouraging, but make sure you don't give up.
The trick to finding people who are interested in helping is to move your focus away from personal contacts. Make it more general. Do not try to make your aunt care about what happened. You may love your aunt, you may care about your aunt, and you may wish your aunt cared more about the disaster and wanted to help. (To my aunt: this is a hypothetical aunt, I know you care.) However, your aunt is only one person. It's like approaching individual people and trying to make them all badminton enthusiasts. Some people will be receptive to it, but others won't, and nothing makes your aunt more likely to be a badminton enthusiast just because she's close to you.
Tell your university. Tell your old study abroad program. Write a letter to the editor in your hometown. Write a guest opinion in the newspaper. Ask your old workplace to put something up on their blog. Tell them what is happening now and then make sure to tell them specifics on what they can do about it. Then, let people come to you and follow up with them. Repeat. And you never know, your aunt might just want to get involved after all.
So the second thing I plan to do is to write to newspapers in Oregon, my hometown's and the nearest big city, and do just that. There are things that people at home can do and it's a waste of resources as long as people with the potential to act aren't being reached.
Third and final thing: there is a lot of content about HANDS and about recovery that I haven't been putting up on this blog. Part of the reason is because it's Japanese content and I don't have the time to translate it all, and part of it is it just doesn't occur to me to make that content available in English. Anyway, I know you have just as much right as I have to information, so I'll try to do better at passing on more details about what we do, and more news about recovery in general.
This is my last full day in Oregon. Off to pack and exercise and spend time with my family, plus stuff myself full with food. Have a wonderful New Year's Day or New Year's Eve, depending on your location.
Anna
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