Dear Friends,
With my friends here in Iwate, I have launched the charity project "3.11 Picture Book Project in Iwate." It has already begun and picture books are being sent from all over Japan, as the Nikkei shimbun newspaper reported (in Japanese) on March 28 (see “News”). I became acquainted with the Nikkei reporter in Base l when Empress Michiko attended the IBBY Congress held there in 2002; he was among the many reporters who followed her at that time.
I took up residence in beautiful I wate Prefecture in May 2010 with my husband and older son, both of whom are disabled. In previous months, I was asked to give talks in many places around Iwate, and they were enormously successful, as people wanted to know about my father Yasutake Funakoshi, who was a sculptor mainly on Christian themes, and about whom I have publishing for some time. And then on March 11, the great earthquake and tsunami struck the long coastline of Iwate and three other prefectures.
Thanks to those talks, I have many new friends here with whom I could discuss the idea of collecting picture books and taking them to the children who are victims of the disaster. There are more than a thousand disaster shelters in I wate alone. My idea came from the IBBY movement while I was a board member on it. As one of the members at that time told us, the stresses and nightmares of children who had experienced the air raids of World War II were soothed when they were held in someone's lap and picture books were read to them. The same has been found to be true for victims of hurricanes and other calamities. And now so many books have been delivered to our office at the city cultural hall in Morioka, the capital of Iwate; almost two or more trucks full of picture books arrive every day. To my surprise they are quite good books, and I can tell how people in Japan are concerned about this tragedy and want to do something for the child victims of the tsunami. Now I am sure that we will have enough picture books. Many volunteers are working at opening the boxes and sorting the books. In only three days, 402 boxes were delivered.
Now, we need to collect funds for this movement, and we need to prepare containers for the books as well as other facilities and fuel for transportation to the shelters, etc. Today, the local newspaper reported that there are more than 50 children in Iwate Prefecture who lost both of their parents and some who even lost their grandparents, too. Please support our project with your donations and help us bring smiles and hope to these children.
Yours,
Chieko Suemori
Iwate prefecture, Japan
April 2011