HARU Meeting

Hello, this is Kuboki, a member of Public Relations Section of HARU.

We held the 2nd whole-team meeting on November 24th.

We discuss about progress of each projects and topics which involve the whole team.

This time I would like to share what we have discussed in this meeting.

First, we shared progress and future work of all 3 projects, Library recovery, Study support and Field mustard. It was quite a nice occasion to get to know about other projects than I belong to.

Library and study support projects were doing activities daily, and also Field mustard project have progressed on contriving events which will be held next spring and summer.

Next, we discussed about a topic which recently came up.

Though short has it been since we had restarted, many, from professors in our university to foreigners, have suggested us new projects.

I can't wright much about specific contents. But we are willing to do whatever we can, one by one.

At last, we heard report about symposium at Kobe University. We could know what we wanted to refer to from January 17quake in1995 and volunteer activities since then.

At the end of this article, I'll share a photo of this meeting.

LIGHT UP NIPPON

    After 8 months of the earthquake, on  November 11th, a lecture by Y. Takada, who have found LIGHT UP NIPPON, was held at Tohoku University.

   LIGHT UP NIPPON was found to act on the situation we had after the earthquake, that people stop holding firework festivals, to cheer up affected area and all over Japan, by volunteers including Takada and workers in Tokyo.

     They realized 10 firework festivals at a time at affected areas such as Sendai harbor and MinamiSouma, involving many people, companies, and even governments, raising over 60 million yen. (for further information, see http://lightupnippon.jp/)

   I have learned many about producing events and projects, feeling much of his feeling for reconstruction at the lecture. The most impressive thing I learned was how important "to act" and "connection of people" are.

"To act"

   We have to actually take action to start something. There are many things you don't know until you start. Though you may face problems by acting, you can find ways to solve problems when you know what the main problem is. You can get more motivated when you overcome problems one by one.

"Connection"

    Connections can be a big energy for acting and challenging things. You can manage doing things more efficient when you know someone know about it better. Takada said LIGHT UP NIPPON have done all this by having professionals of each field in charge. Wider the connection you have, more chance you have.

    3 projects are in progress day by day after restarting HARU.

  New projects will probably be found for reconstruction. For that occasion we will apply what we have learned from the lecture and hopefully help reconstruction of affected area.

"Let's cheer Tohoku up and make them happy"

HARU Public Relations

H. Eto

After 8 months

Hi, this is Tsugawa, from public relation of HARU.

We are going to change how we disseminate our acts, as HARU changed its activity form.

Honestly speaking, we have escaped from a lot of things to protect us.

It was because we couldn't presume what would happen, and we were scared that those happenings might turn out to be serious problems.

In fact, we have faced numbers of failures and frustrations.

Also we have hesitated to disseminate our acts, for asking ourselves if we can do something we can really be proud of. We heard people say the word "self-satisfaction."

On this occasion we are re-examining the operations of HARU. We are feeling that we should confront to problems more authentically. We would like to share them here as well.

＊

Through our past actions, we learned how difficult it is to act for others. We have to understand genuinely what they need, sometimes those are implicit or opposite from what they say.

Still more, we have to take the measure if we can handle them. We might trouble even more for not being able to manage ourselves for strong sense of mission and responsibility.

Another problem is whether our actions actually help them or not.

To go to the extreme, the actions might extinguish their opportunity of getting the strength, mind or idea of overcoming the problem, where we cannot help them for entire future.

However, we won't be able to do anything if we thought of such things.

I thought that there is no way other than do things what we can do with cordiality and receptivity.

For that matter we need true heart to sympathize with others.

We will keep acting with real motivation, understanding, and sincerity.

＊

It's getting much cold these days in Miyagi as the daytime gets shorter.

Take care,

Y.Tsugawa

View from Tohoku University @Mt. Aoba

Tohoku University Festival, Nov. 3rd – 5th

Hi, this is Otsuka, HARU Public Relations Section.

The weather has been nice recently, but during the night it’s already cold. I feel winter coming. Tohoku University held University Festival in this nice, good weather from 3^rd to 5^th of November.

              The theme of this year’s festival is “Link Tompei.” “Link” stands for how we work all together under such circumstance that Tohoku district has had a hard time because of the earthquake. “Tompei” stands for Tohoku University students, with message of bond to be put out. This year they made cute little “Pi-to kun” a mascot character.

              During the festival, a lot of people from the area around visited the university to enjoy. I felt grateful to see it that we could hold this festival after the earthquake.

              At the festival, earthquake-reconstruction-related volunteer teams reported their activities as well as other ordinal events and booths. Although HARU unfortunately couldn’t participate in that, it was pretty good to know other team’s activity. At an exhibition, I felt as much of how lurid the tsunami disaster was by displays of bicycles, tires, and clocks that were swept up.

              What I have learned watching and listening to what people say at those exhibitions, no matter how different the way they stood up or how they act, we have all the same passion “for people in affected area” and goal “Reconstruction of Tohoku.” We should keep on doing what we Tohoku University students can, for long term, changing its contents to fit to needs.

              Each projects of HARU are moving on day by day. We would like to share report of those projects as well on this blog later on.