UNESCO CHAIR WENDIRESILIENCE BRIEF 2020
BY GRADUATE STUDENTS

KYOTO UNIVERSITY UNESCO CHAIR WENDI

Course for Creating Resilient Societies
MARCH 2020

The UNESCO CHAIR WENDI Resilience Brief

2020 is a collection of brief reports by Kyoto University

UNESCO Chair WENDI graduated students, who have worked on their independent studies or fieldworks under acompulsory elective subject: 1) “Social Innovation and Resilience” or 2) “Practices for Creating Resilience”
provided by Course for Creating for Resilient Societies (CRS) in UNESCO Chair on Water, Energy and Disaster
Management for Sustainable Development (WENDI), Kyoto University, during 2019-2020. As a part of thisactivity, we organized Workshop on Creating Resilient Society on Feb. 27, 2020 to share their activities and drive
collaborative dialogues with invited participants from different backgrounds based on the presentations by thegraduate students and authors of this report. We hope this report will contribute to building collaborativeknowledge on creating resilient societies. We will keep working on the theme of Creating Resilient Societies with
relevant vigorous activities and research.
KYOTO University WENDI
Course of Creating Resilient Societies Faculty Member/Associate Professor, Mika Shimizu

Contents
Photos of Authors p.2
Moving forward into Resilient Society: Toward ten years after the Tohoku Earthquake in Japan
Hyorim Lee, The Graduate School of Advanced Integrated Studies in Human Survivability (GSAIS) pp.3-6
Are local communities pushed beyond their adaptation capacity? : a case study in Tagondaing village, Kayin
State, Myanmar

Saw Win Myo, San, Graduate School of Agriculture pp. 7-10

Are social and ecological resilience important assets for buffering the effects of external shocks? A case study in
the Tohoku region, Japan

Kyaw Kyaw Htoo, Graduate School of Agriculture pp.11-14

Disaster Prevention Class for Children from Single Parents Family in the Temple, Nagoya city
Ayaka Watanabe, Graduated School of Advanced Integrated Studies in Human Survivability pp.15-23
Community Engagement in Resilience Building in Disaster-Prone Regions: Application of Tohoku Practices to
Myanmar

San San Htay, Graduate School of Agriculture pp.24-26

A Key Practical Concept to Create Resilient Society through Omoyai (おもやい) -Sharing and CoexistingRyo Tsuchida, Graduate School of Advanced Integrated Studies in Human Survivability pp.27-30
Can the establishment of tide protection forest be one of the resilience approaches after Tohoku Disaster? Acase study of Iwanuma City, Miyagi Prefecture

Akari Phyu Phyu Thet,

Graduate School of Agriculture pp. 31-33
Communication as linkage among stakeholders to improve resilience in international cooperation
Miranda Alem, Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies -pp.34-37
Snapshots of Workshop pp.38
1

Larissa deAuthors of

UNESCO CHAIRWENDI Resilience
Brief 2020

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UNESCO CHAIR WENDI CREATING RESILIENT SOCIETY

Moving forward into Resilient Society:Toward ten years after the Tohoku Earthquake in Japan
Hyorim Lee
The Graduate School of Advanced Integrated
Studies in Human Survivability (GSAIS)
D1

Background: After the Tohoku earthquake

structures and functions
While reducing disaster risks is one portion for the
resilience involves plural aspects in humans,societies, economies, ecologies, and others, withheterogeneous stakeholders from the varied levels.
To understand resilience better, we should be able tounderstand the linkages between the three among
multi-dimensions interacting closely with each other.
Regarding the Sendai framework statement, whichsays that enabling ‘Build Back Better’ is the key todisaster recovery, from a resilience perspective,
multiple stakeholders should agree on ‘what’ arebetter things and ‘how’ they will make it. It seems theJapanese government needs to look into more on
people and the natural and social environment so it
can gear toward a resilient society.

After nine years since the Tohoku
earthquake (平成 23 年東北地方太平洋沖地震) with
a 9.0-magnitude earthquake, tsunami, and the
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear disaster( 福島第一原子力発電所事故) in 2011 happened in Japan. Japan isfacing another recovery phase: The Japanese
government established the Reconstruction
Agency( 復 興 庁 ) in 2012. The objective of
rebuilding the devastated areas within ten years but
is about to extend the Agency’s term by ten years
until 2031 confront a wide range of social andeconomic challenges. Challenges to recovery in the
Northeastern(Tohoku/東北) area is still ongoing. The
Japanese government has exerted efforts to restore
the infrastructure and facilities. Some locals feel that
the Japanese government has focused too much on
the reconstruction of infrastructure while they hope
to take care of other different priorities - for recovery
in their hometown. Visiting the affected sites in
Tohoku reveals the challenges and issues that need tobe addressed to make society resilient to natural
disasters.
Resilient society can cope with disasters
and produce better outcomes in the face of adversity.
More specifically, United Nations Office for Disaster
Risk Reduction(UNISDR, 2009) defined resilienceas the ability of a system, community or society
exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate toand recover from the effects of the hazard in a timely
and efficient manner, including through thepreservation and restoration of its essential basic

Bridging Gaps Between the Government andLocal Communities
In the Northeastern (Tohoku/ 東北 ) area,
governments have steadily taken steps to rebuild the
Tohoku area, but, in terms of the linkage ofapproaches for recovery between the government
and local communities, there are disarrays.
Building seawalls is an example to represent thedisarray: What the government did is that building
massive concrete seawalls like another the Great
Wall in Japan around the north-eastern coastline,
which costs more than ¥1 trillion to defend fromtsunamis.
This seawall construction work is goingahead, despite protests from locals and controversies

3continue. Locals oppose these giant seawalls,
claiming that these will cause environmental
problems, destroying the eco-system and ruining thebeautiful scenery. To be sure, seawalls block the flowof water, sand, and living creatures between land andsea so that biodiversity issues come into play, butalso the livelihoods of local people. Locals I met
during the visit of Maehama District( 前浜地区) in
the southern region of Kesennuma City(気仙沼市),
Miyagi Prefecture( 宮 城 県 ), pay attention to thelinkages between humans and nature, which is a
critical component for building a resilient society.
(Shimizu and Clark, 2019). Particularly the
inhabitants born and bred in the local areas feel
disconnected from nature in facing the seawall. One
resident who spent his life as a fisherman said,"Human beings cannot live apart from nature. The
Tohoku earthquake was vicious, so that there wasnothing we could stop it, but we should be together
with it. I think building such a large structure evades
the connection.” He knows well that humans andsocieties in nature are inseparably linked. Anotherinhabitant said, “I was born in the sea, and would liketo die at sea even though still I am terrified of theprevious catastrophe.”
The head monk of Rinno-Temple(輪王寺),
Hioki Doryu( 日置道隆 ) has initiated to constructanother seawall, which is more biological andenvironmental. He founded the Forest Breakwater
Seawalls Association( 森 の 防 潮 堤 協 会 ) and has
promoted to plant the forest seawalls. One Thousand
Hope Hills(千年希望の丘) in Iwanuma City(岩沼市),
Miyagi Prefecture represents how he responded to anatural disaster in collaboration with Iwanuma Cityand his colleagues. They build large hills by mixing
tsunami trash with soil and planting various trees
with the most robust roots from biodiversity, on topof them to create ‘forests which protect the life of
lives.’ Before the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami,
the government planted only one species of pine trees,
and they learned it is not adequate to protect
themselves. The point here is Doryu did not go toconcrete materials; he has studied more forestry to
get over the next tsunami. He also utilized lands thathave become uninhabitable to use as a refuge fortsunami and earthquake, while leaving the memoryof the Tohoku earthquake as green embarkment

where people planted various types of seedlings fromall across the country. While infrastructure is critical,
rebuilding a new and more robust infrastructure does
not bring back the lives of citizens who suffered fromdisasters. The government decided to keep natureand people apart to protect residents by reinforcing
the concrete seawalls, while residents want topreserve their local culture, lifestyle in communionwith nature. Two contrasting responsiveness,
concrete seawalls versus forest seawalls, articulates
that the government took a fast-track rather than
thinking through the implications.
Based on the above example, the key tounderstanding the gap is ‘resilience.’ It is allimportant that the government and stakeholders do
not lose sight of the holistic approach, which is a
critical component of resilience. The holistic
approach tends to lack in the bureaucratic systems,
under which organization schemes define the genetic
makeup of its moves, people deal with their works
according to specific rules and procedures, not basedon flexible processes, creative thinking, andrelationships. Bureaucrats tend to focus only on
specific points within their defined roles and have
limitations in looking at the whole situation beyond
their territories in collaboration with others in
handling complicated tasks through multiple scopes.
If the government seeks to for building a resilient
society, they need to transform their way of doing
their works through resilience perspectives.
Processes are critical in the linked withindividual, social, ecological, environmental
contexts since a resilient society is not only about one
aspect; it encompasses multi-dimensions. That iswhy ‘resilience’ means a multi-dimensional socialorganism. Resilient society calls for elastic andinclusive countermeasures through social organisms
rather than a stiff system. How could we function thesocial organism for a resilient community/ society?
Strengthening resilience in a traditional way
Mainichi Newspaper ( 毎 日 新 聞 )surveyed 1,274 men and women over the age of 18
between October and December in 2018. According
to the result of the survey, 78 percent of people think
the Tohoku earthquake is ‘the most memorable event’

4that happened in the Heisei era(平成: 1989-2019)1,
Japan always emerges stronger from adversity. Many
researchers and locals have instituted in several
domestic and international literature on the memories
and lessons learned from this natural calamity. It
guides how the next generations can prepare andrecover for the coming disaster and will produce
motivation in which old ways are updated andconferred interests overcome to create a new accordthat results in a resilient, sustainable and competitive
society.
Ishinomaki NEWsee ( 石 巻 ニ ュ ー ゼ )exhibited a collection of articles from the handwritten Ishinomaki Hibi Shinbun/The daily
Ishinomaki Newspaper ( 石 卷 日 日 新 聞 社 ) andpreserved the vivid scenes of the day since it was notable to print right after the earthquake. Thisdevastated Ishinomaki city( 石 巻 市 ) makes locals
anticipate the possibility of earthquakes and tsunami
in the future. The created images fires away fear
among locals and give what they should do to survive
and stressed the need for constant vigilance.
Ishinomaki NEWsee is a modern version of stone
makers recording the level of tsunamis warning not
to build one’s home below this point. As such, both
central and local governments, local organizations,and locals have commemorated and to hand down the
Tohoku earthquake. UNESCO said about the role ofculture in its paper “The Future We Want,” thesignificance of culture in a resilience concept. It
described that culture plays a vital role in both prestage and post-stage of a disaster by reducing risk
incorporating traditional knowledge and rebuilding a
sense of community. In this regard, Japan isoutstanding to bequeath the civic spirit of resilience
as a culture. This collaboration offers a valuableglimpse at a resilient perspective and consideredsocial capital.

sharing service for people, especially those who are
the elderly and socially disadvantage in greatest need.
It took note of the sharing economy to know down
isolated locals, strengthen mobility and community
network. Botsman and Rogers proposed in 2010
from their book, “What’s Mine is Yours.” They
defined the sharing economy is an economic model
based on sharing underutilized assets or services, forfree or for a fee, directly from individuals through an
online platform. Some companies like Airbnb, Uber,and many others have become global operations but
not so much in Japan; for example, the Japanese
government restricted ride-sharing services due toprotests by taxi companies. Still and all, the JapanCar Sharing Association kept an eye on the benefitsof sharing economy, such as increasing self-reliance,sustainableconsumption,
lessnegativeenvironmental impacts, and forming a supportive
community.
This innovative car-sharing has engaged insolving the problems that the government could nottake care of in some parts of the community. Needs
come in all ages and lifestyles, and it turns out thatthe government can’t respond in the front lines on
account of equality, procedure, and cost withvehicles lost and damaged during the Tohoku
earthquake. Emergency Instructions state in anemphatic tone, that one must evacuate to shelters, butsome people could not go out of the house because
they were afraid for their pets, or one of the family
members has physically or mentally constraint to goout. These circumstances impinge on the lives andhardly appear within the documentation, limiting theassistance from the government. The Japan Car
Sharing Association contributes to solving these
problems. This is the reason why bottom-up social
innovation is indispensable.
The Japan Car Sharing Association
provides riding-sharing at a fraction of the fee, which
is about to fuel charge; it receives subsidies from thegovernment for labor costs and accepts monetary andvehicle donations from citizens and companies. All
the users have to do is making a reservation on thephone. The Japan Car Sharing Association utilized
online access to collect contributions throughLooking Ahead: Reshaping Paradigm for a
Resilient Society
Another grassroots initiative by the JapanCar Sharing Association(日本カーシェアリング協会) allows us to see how civic movement could bringsocial change from the bottom up. It launched a ride1 https://mainichi.jp/articles/20181230/ddm/002/040/041000c

5

Amazon or other crowdsourcing sites, not for theusers. It is for the reason that the elderly require
training to understand the function of the platformand device; they often feel frustrated to learn newtechnology. Arranging training programs for theelderly is a demanding task at the moment beyond its
capacity. This ride-sharing service organization
adopted the latest economic platform in conjunction
with traditional modes in such a way that no one
becomes isolated. What is noteworthy is that theJapan Car Sharing Association cuts to the heart of
how you make social networking useful,notwithstanding someone might not agree to call theJapan Car Sharing Association as a part of the new
economic system because of its lack of digitalplatform.
Prof. Kenichi Masaki (正木 賢一) and his
students at Tokyo Gakugei University (東京学芸大学) stand up for this movement by producing a newlogo symbolizing the link for the ride-sharing service
providers and users. This work is much morecollaborative and looks beyond academia andbusiness boundaries for the ethic of cooperation.
The ideal approach for a resilient society
resides in the way of transdisciplinary thinking andknowledge sharing. Rome wasn't built in a day, anda journey of a thousand miles begins with a single
step. The Japan Car Sharing Association leads tobetter results by cooperating with the government
and applying the new approach-the Sharing
Economy, providing a high level of service at a low
cost by the use of underutilized assets. Through thesevoluntary initiatives after the Tohoku earthquake inJapan, we can learn how to organize civil society tomove toward a resilient society.

Policy: Structural Views. In Nexus of Resilienceand Public Policy in a Modern Risk Society (pp.
13-31). Springer, Singapore.
5) UNISDR, U., 2015, March. Sendai frameworkfor disaster risk reduction 2015–2030.
In Proceedings of the 3rd United Nations World
Conference on DRR, Sendai, Japan (pp. 14-18).

Reference
1) Botsman, R. and Rogers, R., 2010. What’s mine
is yours. The rise of collaborative consumption.
2) Buckler, C. and Creech, H., 2014. Shaping thefuture we want: U.N. Decade of Education for
Sustainable Development; final report. Unesco.
3) Reduction, D.R., Resilience: In the 2030 Agenda
for Sustainable Development.
4) Shimizu, M. and Clark, A.L., 2019. A Modern
Risk Society and Resilience-Based Public

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UNESCO CHAIR WENDI CREATING RESILIENT SOCIETY

Are local communities pushed beyond their adaptation capacity? : a case study in
Tagondaing village, Kayin State, Myanmar
Saw Win Myo San
Graduate School of Agriculture
Masters 2nd Year
１．Introduction

２．The village

In the face of hardships, poor people
struggle and adapt to survive. Most often in thepast, their adaptation strategies to natural
disasters worked to a degree. But now with theadded effects of climate change to the alreadyworsening situation, most of them around theworld are close to the limits of their capacity tocope (Dobie, P., et al., 2007).
Myanmar is the third country most affectedby extreme weather events in the past two
decades between 1997 and 2016, with thehighest overall death toll (Germanwatch Global
Climate Risk Index 2018). It is crucial for thecountry to build the capacity of local people for
mitigation and adaptation to natural disasters. In
December 2019, I studied a Kayin community
called Tagondaing in the southeastern part of
Myanmar, some 90 km to Thailand border. This
small study seeks to understand how local
people have been coping with and adapting to
the disasters caused by climate change.
Through personal (semi-structured) interviews
with local people, it was found that outmigration to Thailand has been the strategy thatmost of local people in the study area haveadopted and resulted in myriad of social
problems such as lack of working youth anddrug abuses.

Tagondaing village has about one thousandhouseholds with more or less five thousand
residents, and the majority are Kayin Buddhists,
one of the major ethnic groups in Myanmar.
Nobody knows exactly when the village wasestablished or who pioneered there and settled
down first. Very few bothers to ask suchquestions as their origins. They are naturally
more concerned about their daily lives and how
to pay off tuition fees for their children next
month.
Throughout the Karen conflict with
Myanmar Armed Forces from 1949 until
Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement in 2015, thevillage endured the long and violent civil war,and its unimaginable consequences such as
forced labour and human shield in battle or formine clearance to name a few.
With annual rainfall ranging from 3000 mm
to 5000 mm, agriculture and fishery havealways been the most important livelihood
activities until when there is not enough fish in
the ponds and farms no longer yield enough tofeed families. Rubber plantations have served
as a major income source to some families until
the gradual fall of rubber price starting 2013.
Nowadays, remittance from Thailand has
become one of the most important income
sources for over 50% of the households.

7

lands uncultivable which can otherwise be used
for double cropping.
Flooding occurs every year, but thefrequency of major flood has increased over the
past ten years with 2019 being the mosthazardous and destroyed all the paddy fields.
For the first time in decades, charity groups
visited the forgotten village and distributed
bags of rice and clothes. Although local people
were thankful, that was by no means sufficientnor the most effective way of tackling the
problem that requires serious and sustained
investment from the government.

Tagondaing village lake

３. Environmental deterioration, climate

４．Adaptation

change and disaster
The village used to be inside Tagondiang
Reserve Forest but recently the government
abolished part of reserve forest for the village.
As the government’s writ has never fully
reached the area to this day, there is virtually no
law enforcement in land and forest
management. Local people traditionally sharedand managed these lands among themselves
without government intervention for many
decades. The forests adjacent the village wereconverted primarily into agriculture lands andfishponds almost 25 or so years ago. Fuelwood
for cooking also comes from the surrounding
forests. But almost all the forested lands werecleared cut after people started establishingrubber plantations in 2006-2007.
Agricultural activities, whether it is during
growing or harvesting season, are constantly
threatened by the variability of weather. Soil
deterioration coupled with erratic rainfall andearly drought brought about by climate changemeant rainfed paddy fields did not produce
even to cover the production cost. To
compound matters, government commissioned
a project without consultation with community
members to dig the creek (near the village
paddylands) in 2016 which changed theunderground water table forever andcontributed the early water scarcity in dry
season. This has rendered a huge area of arable

Although people do not usually use theterm ‘climate change’ per se, they clearly
perceive the changes in weather patterns and its
impacts on farmlands, and they often talk about
the matter among themselves. It is obvious thatthey are well aware of climate change and its
impacts on their livelihoods. The majority of
local communities attribute such changes toland clearing and deforestation. But othersignificant causes such as human-induced GHG
emissions are naturally beyond their grasp and
not in their discussion. It is a clear indicationthat awareness raising activities are urgently
needed.
Discussion with local farmers and elders
revealed that they did not have a collective
system or sufficient resources as a community
for disaster preparedness. Their traditional
knowledge about weather forecast and natural
disasters have served them well until climatechange has made nature less predictable. No
alarm system is put in place nor evacuationroute designated in case of emergency in thevillage. To this date, there has never been any
awareness raising activity by government or
NGO regarding disaster preparedness. It isstriking that there was no support fromgovernment whatsoever for strengthening
resilience of local people except for rice seeds
distributed to some farmers in 2019 after theflooding. Local people try as they have always
done to deal with what they see as “their own

8

problems” by themselves. Nobody bothers torequest help from government. It was foundthat strong bond among family members is themost important factor in overcoming the hardtimes.
As an adaptation strategy, local people tried
to diversify their income sources and livelihood
activities, or they double their efforts in farms to
make their ends meet. This strategy worked forsome time. But such push factors asenvironmental deterioration, climate change,
insufficient jobs became so strong that local
people were left with no option but leave theirhomes to save them. In early 1990s, a few people
illegally started out-migrating to Thailand in
search of jobs. Gradually, through growing
networks in Thailand, the number of people going
there increased. In the beginning, many families
saw this as an opportunity to overcome theirproblems at home and very few intended to stayabroad for the rest of their lives. Yet the reality isthat very few come back home down to numerous
reasons. As a consequence, in the long run, more
and more working people migrated to Thailand
and less than 10% of villagers work in farm
today. This was the beginning of the vicious cyclethat prevails even today. Children and elders are
the only residents you will encounter if you visit
the village. This pattern of out-migration andabandonment of farmlands is common in many
parts of Kayin State, Mon State and Tanintharyi
Region that border Thailand.

important for preservation of cultural identity.
When a cultural ceremony such as ‘Kayin Soul
Binding Ceremony or Wrist Tying Ceremony’is organized, there are fewer and fewer youth tocarry on the tradition. Children grow up without
their parents around and many of them becomesocial misfits in the community. Drug addiction
is rampant even among high school students.
Not surprisingly, school dropout rate is getting
higher and only 20% of high school students
annually pass Matrix Exam. Without a degree
for job hunting, they chose the easy way. They
again follow the parents’ footsteps and go to
Thailand for job and this vicious cycle goes on.
5. Are they resilient?

To be fair, the residents of Tagondaing
have been self-sustained and resilient to toughcondition for many decades. Now their struggle
seems insurmountable without outsider support.
While there is a tendency to view resilience as alocal or community issue, it is important to note
that, in the context of a modern risk society, thesize, complexity, and impacts of cascading
disaster risks are often beyond the capacities of
local communities to handle (Shimizu & L.
Clark, 2019). Therefore, it is crucial to apply‘system thinking’ and understand the complex
relationships among different systems to create
resilience of individuals and communities(Figure 1).

One respondent laments, “Now fewer andfewer people speak and write their mothertongue (Kayin language). Because most of
the young people who are supposed tocarry on our rich tradition are in
Thailand.”
It is undeniable that there are positive sides
to out-migration such as economic
development, thereby education and otheraspects of living standard. In this particular casestudy, social problems far outweigh positive
aspects. There is labour shortage in economic
and social activities in the village which are

Figure 1. Resilience in human, social, and natural systems andtheir relationships (Shimizu)

96.

Way Forward(FSC) certification. Government’s policy andsupport from international organizations are
critical to realize this potential. Morever, withnational and international support, long-term
forest restoration programmes such asagroforestry initiatives that integrate local land
practices will make communities more resilientin case of environmental and economic shocks.

Although it is impossible to suggest a‘one-size-fits-all’ solution to all the challenges
above, different actors and stakeholders need toadopt holistic approaches in order to create
resilience in communities. For example, there
are opportunities for businesses and local
communities to work together in areas such as
rubber wood and furniture production. As in thecase in Thailand, smallholder rubber planters
can gain higher prices for latex and rubber
wood through Forest Stewardship Council
Reference

1. Dobie, P., Shapiro, B., Webb, P., and Winslow, M. (2007) ‘How do Poor People Adapt to Weather
Variability and Natural Disasters Today?’, Human Development Report 2007/2008, United
Nations Development Programme
2. Saw Yu May. (2015) ‘Migration as a Challenge for Myanmar’s Socio-economic Development:
Case Studies of Hpa-an and Mrauk-U townships in Myanmar’
3. Shimizu, Mika, L. Clark, Allen. (2019) ‘Nexus of Resilience and Public Policy in a Modern
Risk Society’, Springer, Singapore
4. https://blogapac.fsc.org/2018/04/07/thailands-support-for-fsc-standards-background-reasonsand-impacts/
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_conflict

6. https://germanwatch.org/sites/germanwatch.org/files/publication/20432.pdf
7. https://reliefweb.int/report/myanmar/myanmar-monsoon-floods-update-8-august-2019
8. https://germanwatch.org/sites/germanwatch.org/files/publication/20432.pdf

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UNESCO CHAIR WENDI CREATING RESILIENT SOCIETY

Are social and ecological resilience important assets for buffering theeffects of external shocks? A case study in the Tohoku region, Japan.

Kyaw Kyaw Htoo
Graduate School of Agriculture
Second-year master student
The epicenter was beneath the seabed, about
forty-five miles off the northeast coast of Japan.

１．Background
Japan is one of the countries most affected bynatural disasters in the world. In Japan, many
types of disasters occur as tsunamis,
earthquakes, typhoons, floods and volcanic
eruptions. However, how the Japanese sought
to confront them to adapt is often invisible to theoutside world. This is certainly true of Japan
where history and tradition are ubiquitous. Fora deeper understanding of how Japan adapts
and survives, we need to delve into the societyof a country.
To see the portrait of a nation with ahistory of overcoming successive waves ofadversity from repeated natural disasters, wevisited the Tohoku region and learned theadaptative capacity and social cohesion ofresilient society.

3．The role of the ecological diversity of theforest during the disaster and in postdisturbance recovery
In the traditional scene of Japan, it could beseen the beautiful beach with white sand, talland green pine trees. Along the coast, the green
pine, which is easy to plant and can grow faster,
has long been used to protect from tide andstrong winds as green walls. When planting
trees, it is essential not to make the wrong
choice of trees to utilize. Is the pine tree theright choice for coastal areas to serve as a green
wall? Do they really withstand at times ofdisasters?

２．Study area
Tohoku is located in the northeast part of Japanand that is what people called the region where
the tsunami struck by the earthquake on 11
March 2011 (YAGASAKI, 2017). This was
something entirely extraordinary as it was the
fourth most powerful earthquake in recorded
history with measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale.

Pine trees near the coast of Sendai

11After the tsunami, many pine trees were
uprooted as their roots do not penetrate deeply
as those of broadleaf evergreen trees which may
go deeper ground in sandy areas. It had seenthat forests of one kind of tree were weak attimes of disaster. On the other hand, some
native broadleaf evergreen trees left after thedisaster. That would be the point to look at why
and how these trees withstand the harshest
conditions.

pivotal role in natural processes (Gunderson,2010), contrasting the ecology of an area is justa part of the puzzle and we need to explore more
about the social cohesions which are embeddedin the society.

4 ． Collective actions and local learning
promote social cohesion in communities.
After the tragic 2011 Tohoku earthquake andtsunami disaster in Japan, not many trees
remained along the coast. However, locallygrown camellia plants with strong roots
survived and became a symbol of hope.
“Sanriku” refers to a Tohoku coastal region
and “Tsubaki” means camellia in Japanese.
We had seen a unique local community who has
been working on the project called “Tsubaki
Project” in the Maehama District, Kesnennuma
City. They create networks that can improve theefficiency of the community by facilitating
coordinated actions.
They build up the community center
after the disaster and have been working on
reviving the unique local forest via planting
Tsubaki trees. One of the community leaderssaid that“No need to debate on planting trees on
public lands or private lands. Even private
properties (trees on private lands) could protect
their lives during disasters.”
The strength of social cohesion plays apivotal role in the reorganization ofcommunities after the disaster (Patel andGleason, 2018). Local people should be at thecenter of local development projects as local
knowledge, and local techniques are highly
adaptable to their environments and theircapacity to recover quickly from difficult
conditions.

The natural forest is formed by many kinds ofnatural resources. The composition of trees isnative to a specific area. The tree which is rooted
deeply and firmly in the soil becomes thedominant tree of such forest. It is rich in organic
matter and it hosts many kinds ofmicroorganisms, insects, and animals. This
unique characteristic is something that resistsin the harshest environment withstanding thedisaster.
After the incident, a mixed forest of
Tabunoki, oak trees and camellia species were
found to survive near the coast where thetsunami hit. It seemed that they could
withstand the impact of the high tide because of
their thick body and firm roots. Those trees arenative to the area for a long time ago. It reflects
simply that some group of trees which arenative to the area will hold much moreresistance to disasters other than pure stands.
This capacity of native trees in withstanding thestress has been noticed by an ecologist, Mr.
Akira Miyawaki from Yokohama National
University and the priest Mr. Hioki Doryu, thehead of Rinnoji Temple in Sendai city. They
worked together and have initiated the treeplanting project called “A Green Tide
Embankment” with the motto of “Creating
forests that protect life”. They planted over
33,000 trees of 60 different varieties that are
native to the area. The reason why they haveattempted to revive such a genuine forest withmiscellaneous native trees was as they become
conspicuous of the native forests and theirstrengths which are attributed to postdisturbance recovery. Although diversity plays a

5．Lessons learned
From this case study, it could be learned thatthe diversified environment outperformed aless-diversity environment as it possesses thecapacity to adapt to external stress. For
instance, forests made up of one kind of tree are12

weak against a disaster. However, we could hopethat various supported native trees will holdmuch more resistance to external stress.
Social learning, the diversity ofenvironment, the promotion of strong local
cohesion and mechanisms for collective actions
have all served as pillars for a resilient andadaptive system. Albeit resilient socialecological systems reduced the vulnerability to
the impacts of the external shocks andencouraged a positive response, this response
needs to be sustained in the longer run (Adger
et al., 2005).
We live today is not by chance. To build
up a more concrete resilient society, any sourcesof the resilience of societies should be sustained,
their life-supporting systems must be enhanced
and ecological knowledge that can be applied in
the community should be generated.

Local community center at Maehama

6. Way forward
What we learned from this case study could
be applied to disaster-prone South East Asian
countries
like
Myanmar,Philippines,
Indonesia, etc. In Myanmar, for example,
frequent drought and flooding often havedevastating impacts on people’s lives, crops
and properties ever year (Mercy Corps, 2015).
It is not surprising as it fails to build up
concrete institutions and more importantly it
has been destroying its environment by
cutting trees. Therefore, it needs many areas
to build up the capacity to be more sociallyand ecologically resilient based on the fourpillars that we had learned from this casestudy and these pillars continue to guideplanning for the future.

Pillars for resilient and adaptative system

13

Reference
Adger, W.N., Hughes, T.P., Folke, C., Carpenter, S.R., Rockström, J., 2005. Social-ecologicalresilience
tocoastaldisasters.
Science
(80-.
).
309,
1036–1039.
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1112122
Gunderson, L., 2010. Ecological and human community resilience in response to natural
disasters. Ecol. Soc. 15, 29. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-03381-150218
Mercy Corps, 2015. The Dry Zone of Myanmar: a Strategic Resilience Assessment of Farming
Communities 25.
Patel, R.B., Gleason, K.M., 2018. The association between social cohesion and community
resilience in two urban slums of Port au Prince, Haiti. Int. J. Disaster Risk Reduct. 27, 161–
167. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2017.10.003
YAGASAKI, T., 2017. The Resilience of Local Communities: The Great East Japan Earthquake
and a Relocation Project in the Moune District of Kesennuma City, Miyagi Prefecture. J.
Geogr. (Chigaku Zasshi) 126, 533–556. https://doi.org/10.5026/jgeography.126.533

14

UNESCO CHAIR WENDI CREATING RESILIENT SOCIETY

Disaster Prevention Class for Children from Single Parents Family
in the Temple, Nagoya city
Ayaka Watanabe
Graduated School of
Advanced Integrated Studies
in Human Survivability
2 Year

１．
Introduction
The big disaster that is predicted to happen
in Japan someday is the Nankai Troughearthquake.
According
to
the
Japan
Meteorological Agency (2019), when a Nankai
Trough earthquake occurs, the intensity will be
7 in strongest, and tsunamis exceeding 10 m aresaid to occur from the Kanto region to Kyushu
region. To prepare for this mega disaster, mostelementary schools in Japan conduct evacuation
drills, and most children will be able to hide
under their desks and protect their heads in theevent of an earthquake. However, thoseevacuation drills are for the scenario for adisaster occurs while you are at school. If an
earthquake occurs when a child is alone, canthey deal with it?
In this project, evacuation drills wereconducted for children from single-parent
families. Children from single-parent families
spend a lot of time alone while their parents areworking. Also, in many cases, there are no
relatives living in the neighborhood to rely on.
When an earthquake occurs, children are forced
to act alone. The aim is to improve the survival
rate of children in times of disaster by
understanding how to deal with earthquakes
when they are alone (First response,
confirmation of designated evacuation sites,
confirmation of evacuation routes, actions to betaken when arriving at evacuation centers, etc.).

The project was carried out at a temple in
Atsuta Ward, Nagoya city. As can be seen from
Figs. 1 and 2, when the Nankai Trough occurs,
there is a strong possibility that Nagoya City will
be damaged not only by earthquakes but also by
tsunamis. The temple is entrusted by Nagoya
City to look after single-parent children from 5
o'clock to 9 o'clock every Wednesday and Friday,
twice a week. The wife of the chief priest has adisaster prevention expert certificate. Based on
this, in this resilience project will be evacuation
drills for children.

Fig1. Intensity Distribution during Nankai
Trough Earthquakes

Fig2. Tsunami height at the time of the
Nankai Trough earthquake

15

disaster prevention, even though the conditions
were so perfect.

２．
Resilience
Resilience often refers to recovery after sometragedy happens. But resilience is not limit torecovery, resilience applies to all the processes
before, when and after something happens. Also,
resilience is a word that applies not only to social
systems and physical things, but also toindividuals,
humanconnections,andcommunities. This is the point I focused on
before an emergency such as an evacuation drill.
From there, the author would like to consider thefactors involved in resilience as described by
Shimizu (2015).

<Continuous Learning>
The Nagoya municipal government contract
project for the temple will end in March this year.
Therefore, there is no plan to continue holding
this prevent evacuation class.
This project will be evaluated by the wife of thechief priest and the university students who are
helping as a staff member.
This temple offers summer camps forelementary school students to stay at the temple.
Not only children from single-parent families
but also other children will be participating. If
the content of this project is useful, the author
will consult with them about whether they canuse it for summer camp or if it is continued as a
Nagoya City consignment project after April.

<Point to Line>
There are various points among the temples
that we focused on in this project.
・ The wife of the chief priest is a disasterprevention officer.
・During the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake,the chief priest visited the affected area andactively participated in visits not only at
morgues, but also at evacuation centers, and had
the experience of being close to the hearts of thevictims.
・ Temples are preparing for operating as
emergency evacuation centers (It is not a shelter
designated by the municipality.).
・ Nagoya City entrust temple to look afterchildren from a single-parent family in twice a
week
・ They hire an outside lecturer and givelectures for the Nagoya City consignment
project
・ Many university students from Aichi
Prefecture come to help as a staff member toNagoya City's commissioned project.
- Atsuta Ward is located at a high-altitude place,where it is difficult for tsunamis to reach andfloods to occur (From the Nagoya City Hazard
Map)<linkage x process>As I mentioned above, there has been no
opportunity to pass on information andknowledge to children in this temple. Before the
Nagoya City project, few children had visitedthe temple, and there were few opportunities tointeract with adults such as university students
and staff. As Shimizu (2015) stated,"Relationships between people are created on adaily basis, but in extraordinary situations, thatis, when an accident or crisis occurs suddenly,
those relationships are reflected." (p. 48). This
project was carried out in February, one and ahalf years after the Nagoya City consignment
project started. Children, the chief priest, thewife of the chief priest, and the staff, including
university students, have built relationships witheach other, and by visiting the temple twice a
week, students have become less reluctant tocome. Although the children live in Nagoya city,
many of them do not know each other'sneighbors. Also, there are many cases whererelatives who can be relied on do not live nearby.
For children, the temple and its staff are the"neighbor" they can rely on in an emergency.
However, it is unclear whether the students areaware of this.

The author considered whether we could makea line by combining all of them. In a nutshell, theauthor felt that it was a shame that we had not
given children evacuation drills and lectures on

16

One of the reasons the wife of the chief priest of
the temple obtained a disaster prevention expert
certificate was to learn how to operate an
emergency shelter in the temple. Temples are notdesignated as shelters by municipalities, but they
are thought to be able to serve as shelters. In
addition, the role of religious facilities in timesof disaster has been attracting attention recently.
There are two reasons.
1) role as a shelter. There are 40,000
convenience stores and 80,000 temples
nationwide, and temples generally have spacious
rooms for memorial services in Japan (Suzuki,
2016, p. 24). At the time of the Great East Japan
Earthquake, some temples were operated as
shelters. Of course, the temple was not operated
by itself but received a lot of support from
Rotary clubs, local residents, and Buddhist
parishioners (Suzuki, 2016, p. 26 -30).
2) It is a religious facility as a place of spiritualsupport. Inoue (2016) said that many people
need resilience in order to overcome the death oftheir loved one, "Important factors for building
resilience include feelings of self-esteem thatcherish oneself, bonding in a stable parent-childrelationship, religious support, and a model thatserves as a norm." (p. 140) （author translated).
For the Japanese, it does not necessarily meanthat they are followers of the sect. The Japanese,
who were in a culture of joining hands fromchildhood, have been living in close contact with
Buddhism and Shintoism without realizing it. I
think there are many Japanese who can say"Namu Amidabutsu (南無阿弥陀仏)" even if
they don't realize that they are Buddhists. The
sudden loss of a loved one is common in
everyday life, but the pain of losing a loved one
is hard to imagine, especially in times of disaster.
Having a place where you can calm down andput your hands together when your loved one
dies has a big meaning as a source of support. It
is considered to be one of the resilience
performed by religious institutions.
According to the pre-interview to the chief
priests and his wife, although they are studying
the operation of evacuation shelters, they havenever conducted simulations. This project is
expected to contribute to the operation ofevacuation shelters in the event of an emergency<Resilience building>
The author believe that this project can be
engaged in three major areas of resiliencebuilding.

Fig.3 systems views of resilience societies
Source: M. Shimizu and A.L. Clark (2019)
One is the resilience of individual resilience.
We believe that this project will help to increase
the internal resilience of children. At this temple,
evacuation drills and other activities have notbeen conducted for children. There is no place
other than elementary schools that can tellchildren how to respond to evacuation drills or
emergencies. Indeed, the lack of continuity ofthe event will not contribute to the sustainable
development of resilience. However, there is a
big difference between zero and one. If we heldat least one event to children, that can increasechildren's internal resilience. It is hoped that
evacuation drills and simulations will help
children become more aware of disasterprevention. This event will be triggers forchildren to be able to take action even when they
are alone in an emergency. It is also related tohuman resilience, but we believe that thepresence of adults who can help in an emergency
and the presence of a place where children canevacuate in an emergency gives them a sense of
security and help reduce their loneliness. We
believe that by connecting with the community,children will be able to enhance their individual
and internal resilience.
Second, we believe we can increase theresilience of communities and organizations.

17mainly by considering what kind of supportshould be provided to children in single-parent
families.
The third is to strengthen local resilience. As
Shimizu (2015) stated, "The face of theneighborhood is always visible, we are in a
relationship to help each other wheneversomething happens, and the process of what to
do when a disaster occurs is widely understood."(p. 49) (author translated) is one of the measuresrequired of communities in the event of adisaster. It is hard to say "be familiar with one's
neighbors" because some areas of Nagoya havelost their children's associations. In particular, it
is difficult for children from single-parent
families to identify the adults in theirneighborhoods whom they can rely on. This
event focuses on temples that are commissioned
by Nagoya City. Through this event, we believethat it will lead to the awareness that there is achild with a single parent in the community andthat it will lead to a "helping each other"relationship in the event of a disaster, as well asthat awareness. It is hoped that these efforts will
increase local resilience.

will become an evacuation shelter since that
temple is located in a high-altitude area.
Target people in this project are 1) Children, 2)
staff members 3) staff members from the temple.
1) This project’s main target is children who
participating in Nagoya city-commissioned
project. Those children’s ages are 10-14,
elementary and junior high school students.
Most of the children are from single-parent
families. Their parents are working until late atnight, sometimes they work overnight.
Therefore, children spend a long period of timealone. 2) Staff members of the Nagoya citycommissioned project are mostly university
student who wants to be a teacher in the future.
Some staff members are worked in the social
welfare section and retired. 3) A staff member
from the temple is basically, chief priest in thetemple and wife who has a disaster prevention
expert certificate.
The purpose of this project is for eachtarget person. 1) For children, there are three
purposes. First, provide an opportunity forchildren, to disaster prevention awareness. The
second purpose is to provide a place for children
giving them an awareness of who and where
they can rely on an emergency situation. The
third purpose is by simulating what to do in an
emergency, they can evacuate calmly even they
are alone when an earthquake happens. 2) For
Staff members especially university students,
the purpose is to think about how to protect yourchildren during a disaster when they become ateacher in the future. 3) For all the staff members
including university students and staff members
from the temple, the biggest purpose is topractice operating evacuation shelters as staff in
the temple.
Before the activities, the author had ameeting with staff members and the wife of thechief priest. We had a discussion about theactivities and exchange information about thesituation of children. probably children cannot
concentrate for a long time, so we decided tohave quizzes and games rather than just lectures.
In the activities, the author distributed todisaster prevention cards and worksheets of３．
Project Target and Purpose
In this project, the target place is a temple in
Nagoya city, Aichi prefecture. There are threereasons why I chose this temple as my projectplace. First, As I already explained, Nagoya has
a high possibility to affect by the Nankai Troughearthquake. Prediction said, 7 Earthquake
intensity and 5 to 10m Tsunami will hit to
Nagoya city when the Nankai mega troughearthquake happen. Second, that temple isconducting Nagoya city-commissioned project.
In Nagoya city-commissioned project, temple
looking after children who live in Nagoya city intwice a week, from 18-21. Those children arefrom single parents’ family. There are staff
members who help the city-commissioned
project. Most of the staffs are university students
who want to be a schoolteacher. Third, the wifeof the chief priest took a disaster prevention
expert exam two years ago, and she got acertificate. There is a possibility that the temple

18

ate. Probably because they chose GomokuGohan which was relatively easy to eat, no
children left their meals. staff members areconcerned that children would spill miso soup on
the floor but children didn't. We played a card
game of disaster prevention from 19: 30 after wefinished cleaning up the meal.

evacuation gabs. The author created this forchildren by referring to pages created by fire
departments and disaster prevention experts.
４．
Activities
The author conducted a disaster prevention
class for the children. Although the first plan was
only one class will be held, we decided to do one
more class as a result of staff meeting after the
first class. We were trying to do real evacuation
drills such as no electronic city, no water supply,
etc. However, we decide not to since this is thefirst trial. The restriction was imposed such as
we cannot use the gas. What we can use waselectricity and things in the temple such as waterthat emergency stored.
4.1. 1st class on 7th February

Fig.4 children are pouring hot water to theiremergency food

The first class was held on Friday, February 7,
2020. We chose Friday because there are many
children and can hold classes until 20: 45. A totalof seven people, two boys, and five girls
participated in the event. Three staff members
and the wife of the chief priest also participated.

We did it to get children are interested in thetheme by playing card games. The game isdivided into categories, such as children's rights,
tsunami, and lives in an evacuation shelter, andeach category has its own explanation on eachcard. You would win if you collected four cards
from the same category. We asked children toread the instructions on the card every time youcollected. By reading the instruction and playing
the cards, children could learn about the basic
idea of disaster.
After the card game was over, the author
distributes the disaster prevention card and ask
children to fill out. It is an assumption that an
earthquake occurred when a child was alone. theauthor told them to protect their heads wheneverthey are when earthquakes happen and talked
about the process of going to the evacuation
shelter. Each disaster prevention card has spacefor emergency contact information, evacuationsites, and identification. For children who did
not know where the nearest evacuation site was,
we checked the evacuation site from the hazard
map. In the identification part, there was a space
to write down allergies and chronic diseases. As
for emergency contact information and otheritems that cannot be filled out immediately, we

It was dinner time from 18: 45, and theauthor discussed it with the staff and decided toeat emergency food. The emergency foodconsisted of alpha rice with hot water, miso soupwith hot water and fish sausage. The water wasboiled in an electric pot and stored water wasused. The children said they didn't want to eat at
first. It was because they had an opportunity toeat emergency food curry at school once a year,
and from that experience, they thought thatemergency food was not delicious. The wife of
the priest told the children about two things. One
is to eat whatever food is served, even if you
don't like it. The second is that in an emergency,
you cannot choose what to eat, and you must eat
to live. When the children heard the story fromthe wife of a chief priest, they followed the
instructions and began to prepare by pouring hot
water. On the assumption that they were eating
at the evacuation shelter, we did not take out
their desks and chairs, but sat on the floor and19asked children to ask and talk with their parents
and fill out the form after they returned home.

Fig.7 practice to ask help by using lightFig.5 disaster prevention card in Japanese

The last exercise was an evacuation drill. The
assumption is that an earthquake occurs whenchildren are outside alone. The room where we
ate dinner was used as an evacuation shelter,
and the staff members practiced operating the
shelter. The children moved to the entrance; theauthor suddenly told them the earthquake
happened. Caution was taken to protect thehead and ensure that the children moving awayfrom a pole. What do you do after theearthquake stops? The author asked the children
and reviewed the disaster prevention card.
When the children arrived at the shelter, theywent to the reception desk and told thereceptionist their names, addresses and thatthey come alone. After that, the author gave a

Fig.6 wife of chief priest showing children
hazard map of Nagoya city
After filling out the disaster prevention card,a portable pouch and light were distributed. The
light is small and turns on when you push the
button. Lights illuminate your feet and call forhelp when an earthquake occurs at night. They
held a workshop where they put tissues anddisaster prevention cards in a pouch and put alight on the ring by themselves. And the author
asked them to keep them all the time.

lecture on what to write on a bulletin board.
This completes the first class.
Fig.8 During the Evacuation drill

20The second meal included an activity to keep
the dishes clean with plastics wrap. There wasno resistance to eating with plastic wrap.
However, most of the children had their plastic
wrap ripped while eating because they had been
pushed or caught with a spoon. Only one childachieved the goal of eating meals without getting
dirty. As for drinking water, stored water was
taken out as a box. Since it is a type with a faucet,
the purpose is to give them the experience ofturning on the water by pushing the bar upwardwith their fingers.

Fig.9 Practice of operating evacuation
shelter and children are arrived at the
shelter alone
After the class was over, we had a staff
meeting. There are three main opinions. First,
we need to check whether children bring disasterprevention cards every time, and we need to doanother evacuation drill. Since the project is held
twice a week, the staff said they will check it out
next week. Secondly, it was pointed out thatchildren lacked a sense of crisis. It was also goodto have disaster drills with friends, but they were
worried that they would not be able to act in an
emergency. Thirdly, if a second disasterprevention class will be held, it would be a goodidea to list the contents of evacuation bags.
When we asked if they had prepared anevacuation bag, only one child said they had one,so they thought it would be better to give alecture on evacuation bags. Based on these, we
decided to hold the 2nd disaster prevention classon February 19.

Fig.10 child trying to pour water from thestored water box to cup
After the meal, the participants were asked tofill out a worksheet with quizzes about what toput in the evacuation bag. the author brought her
evacuation bag, took out the items of answers of
the quizzes, showed to children, and had themexperience it. The first things the children saw
were portable toilets, aluminum blankets, paper

4.2. 2nd class on 19th February
The 2nd disaster prevention class was held on
Wednesday, February 19. The reason why wechose Wednesday was that the participants weredifferent between Friday and Wednesday.
However, they have school the next day, so it
was necessary to finish earlier than last time, andthere was a time limit. There was a total of eightparticipants, three boys, and five girls. Six ofthem participated in the previous class. Threedifferent staff members, and also the chief priest
and his wife participated.

pants and emergency water bags.
Fig.11 worksheet of evacuation bag

21

５．
Discussion
At the second staff meeting, three good points
were raised. The first was the ability to change
the consciousness of children. The children, who
said they were okay and could do it, listened
seriously. Secondly, the previous class review
was also a good point. The staff was surprised
because the child remembered the contents morethan expected. Then lastly, children haveexperienced the actual sound of the earthquake.
Those sounds scared the children, but also thesound of the actual earthquake made themrealize the scariness of the earthquake. Also, thevideo is not shown in the school evacuation drill.
There are three things to be done in the future.
First of all, even though we gave a lecture on
evacuation bags this time, we did not actually
have them tried to carry. The author showed each
item but forgot to talk about the overall weight.
When children experienced the weight of bags,
children might have understood why each
person needed an evacuation bag. The second
concern point is the operation of the evacuation
shelter. By preparing this event's meal, the wifeof the chief priest said she was able to practice
preparing meals in an emergency situation.
However, when the shelters were actuallyoperated, it became clear how to sort out
evacuees and how to operate them. Thirdly, there
is concern that if children arrive alone, whether
the people who run the evacuation shelter able toprotect children or not. Many people gather at
the shelter. Violence and sexual crimes have also
occurred in the evacuation shelter. Staff
members were worried that it would protect
children from not only earthquakes but also
other incidents that might occur at evacuation
shelters.
We don't have a plan to hold the third class at
the moment, but if we were to hold the third class,a suggestion from staff members is to write theevacuation route on a map by children
themselves. Some children live in areas wherezero above sea level, while others live just besiderivers. The point is that children may be able tocheck the evacuation route by themselves by
first simulating from home to school, shelter, etc.,

Fig. 12 children are trying aluminumblanketAfter that, we reviewed the previous lesson,
although it was for the children who participatedin the first lesson. We asked them how theywould act in the event of an earthquake. After
that, an evacuation drill was conducted. The
procedure is the same as the previous one. Thistime, however, an emergency earthquake
warning was broadcast to raise awareness of thedanger. After that, videos of Sendai airport at thetime of the Great East Japan Earthquake on
March 11, 2011, were shown. The video
included people screaming, crying and the soundof broken windowpanes. The children, who were
protecting their heads with smiles, were
frightened by the unimaginable length of theshaking and sound. Two children lost theirsmiles and wept. After about seven minutes ofvideo, they started moving to the shelter. At theevacuation center, the staff was practicing
reception and operation as before. The children
who experienced it last time were able to telltheir names and they came alone smoothly, andeven write their names on the bulletin board.

Fig.13 evacuation drill by showing videoof Sendai airport in 2011.3.11

22

on a map and then actually walking. In fact, there
are cases where children can reach theevacuation shelter faster and more safely on theroad that they usually use than the evacuationroute established by the city. If we have a chance,
we would like to hold the third one.

2)

６．
Conclusion
Among the staff, some had already foundemployment in elementary and junior highschools. They are in a position to protect theirchildren when an earthquake occurs. They took
disaster prevention classes more seriously thanchildren. Also, some staff said they want to get aqualification of disaster prevention experts andstudy, and they talked with the wife of the chief
priest.
This event able to achieve the goal for the staff
as well as the goal for the children. This time, we
could only hold two disaster prevention classes,
but as the awareness of the staff has changed, theauthor hope they will continue to hold disasterprevention classes.
In this activity, we succeeded in changing theconsciousness of children and staff. Although
this event are only two times, this event could
increase children and staff member's internal
resilience. Training in operating the shelter also
increased the resilience of the organization andthe community and helped achieve its objectives.
We could increase short-term resilience. Midterm resilience, including staff and local people,
needs to be enhanced. There is also a need for along-term plan to enable this to continue.
Unfortunately, the Nagoya City consignment
project ended in March, and it is undecided after
April. we need to discuss about how to continue
those activity sustainably.

3)

4)
5)

6)

7)

8)

ド
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10) 防災用品専門店 YAMAX ホームページ(2020) 「専門家が選んだ非常持ち出し袋の商品一覧」
http://www.ymx-shop.jp/fs/bousai/c/1506
11) M. Shimizu and A.L. Clark (2019)“Chapter 6 Linkage in Boundaries for
Resilient Societies Through Local to
Global Level : Roles of Resilience-Based
Public Policy” Nexus of Resilience andIn the future, we hope that children will beable to act calmly in the event of an actual
earthquake, and that the trained staff will be able
to protect them. We also note the need forcontinued implementation.

Public Policy in Modern Risk Society
Springer.

Reference
1) あきる野市ホームページ(2020)「防災カー23

UNESCO CHAIR WENDI CREATING RESILIENT SOCIETY

Community Engagement in Resilience Building in Disaster-Prone Regions:Application of Tohoku Practices to Myanmar

San San Htay
Graduate School of Agriculture
Master Student (M2)
１. Community Engagement in Tohoku
RegionA three-day trip to Tohoku Region
where the Great East Japan Earthquake andTsunami hit in 2011 realized the significance of
civil society or local community’s involvement
for the development of recovery plans aftermathof the disaster.
In this region whereas the government
has constructed concrete seawalls and dykes as a
post-tsunami construction plan, the local
community has also been trying to build green
embarkment. For example, the “Hill of 1000
Years of Hope” at Iwanuma city in Miyagi
Prefecture, a 10 years plan, is the first major
project of the Green Tide Embankment Project
after the 2011 Tohoku Disaster initiated by civilsociety in collaboration with ecological experts,
NGOs and city governments. The project uses
waste generated from the 2011 tsunami tolandscape banks, which are then planted withnative trees that can withstand the force oftsunami, and act as a barrier in disasterprevention.
The local people in Maehama Districtin Kensennuma City is also implementing “TheGreening Campaign” after the Tohoku Disaster.
Most of the trees are Tsubaki, Tabunoki and
Shirodamo and Yuzuriha etc. The salient point of
this campaign is that not only to cope with futuredisasters but also maintain communities’

linkages with natures and cultivate community
bonds.
Forest Plantation in Kensennuma City

The above examples represent theimportance of inter-connectedness of humans,
communities and natures for sustainable society,and one of keys in operationalizing ininterconnectedness is community engagement
for building resilience.
２. Case of Rakhine State and Reasons:Hinder for recovery process aftermath ofdisasters
Rakhine State is located near the bay of
Bangal so much so that the place is highly
exposed to a wide array of natural disasters
including floods, cyclones, storm surges andtsunamis. Myanmar is ill-equipped to cope withsuch kind of catastrophes which resulted in lossof life and extensive damage of assets andinfrastructure. For example, Extremely Severe24Cyclonic Storm Nargis struck in 2008 resulted in
90000 fatalities and 56,000 were missing.
Furthermore, 95 percent of buildings in the
Irrawaddy Delta area were destroyed and caused
widespread damage which is approximately $12
billion. Cyclone slams into Rakhine State every
year. But one more important point is that it takes
many years to recover especially in comparison
with other areas like Ayeyarwaddy Region etc. In
addition, there has been intercommunal conflictand violence between the Rohingya ethnic
minority and the Burmese population for decades(Johnson et al., 2019). Furthermore, there is also
fighting between Myanmar Army and Arakan
Army (AA). And the fighting itself results in theslow recovery process from disasters. A shortageof Aid Funding is also one of the hardships forrecovery process in this area. Poor transportationand communication are also holding back therecovery works. Those factors have hindered therecovery programs in Rakhine State.

The aforementioned insights gained
from the Tohoku Region can be applied to mystudy area so-called “Rakhine State, Myanmar, interms of the need of systems thinking of humans,
communities and natures, and the necessity ofrole of community decision making for resilience.
It is recognized that local community
involvement can play a crucial role for resiliencebuilding in this region like local communities in
Tohoku Region where the community resilienceis a paradigm shift from vulnerability to strength.
For example, following the aforementioned
practice in Maehama District in Kensennma City,
the local people in Rakhine State can engage in
growing and conserving Mangrove Species
which are native species in this region not only tocope with future disasters but also maintaincommunities’ linkages with nature and cultivate
communities’ bonds. Fortunately, the naturalregeneration capacity of these mangrove forest in
Rakhine State is so quick (2019 Regeneration
Survey in Wunbaik Reserve Mangrove Forest by
San San Htay). Besides, these mangrove forest
can store carbon emissions which is a great
benefit for resilience building toward sustainable
society.
To promote the resilience building
activities, the residents from Rakhine Stateshould also build community centers in theircities like the local community center in
Kensennuma city, Maehama District. These
kinds of community centers are essential in suchdisaster-prone coastal area of Rakhine State topromote community resilience building bycommunities. Relying on government alone is
not working well for the recovery plans becauseof difficulties that are mentioned above in thisregion and the local community should
participate actively for the development ofrecovery from disasters in this region.

Rakhine State, Myanmar
Source: Google

4.Necessity for Community Resilience
Building in Myanmar
To assist the community resilience

3. Application of Tohoku Practices to RakhineState, Myanmar

25

building, developing countries like Myanmar,
agricultural insurance should also be consideredto improve food security and reduce the effects offuture disasters. As Myanmar is an agriculturalcountry and the vast majority of people rely on
crop production especially in disasters-hit
regions. That is why, this crop insurance isinevitable needed for the farmers. Agricultural
insurance plays an essential role in reducing thevulnerability of the global food systems to acutefood shocks thereby contributing to resilienceand sustainability. In Japan, paddy insurance andsugarcane insurance are started in 1947
according to Agricultural Natural Disaster
Compensation Law. In a similar way, developing
countries should also have these kinds of
insurances.

References
1) Book, P., 2017. INSURANCE.
2) Column, G., 2020. Would a Cyclone Stop the War in Rakhine? the Irrawady 1–32.
3) Ei, M., Soe, N., Aye, D., Thant, A., Zaya, K., n.d. Prediction of Storm Surge and Risk Assessmentof Rakhine Costal Region 162–181.
4) Excellence, C.G., 2019. News Category Field Work in Agriculture Reconstruction 9–11.
5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Giri6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Komen7) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tropical_cyclones_that_affected_Myanmar8) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Nargis
9) Johnson, T., Meding, J. Von, Gajendran, T., Forino, G., 2019. Resettlement Challenges for
Displaced Populations and Refugees 81–91. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92498-4
10) Miyawaki, A., 2019. Kanagawa Notebook — Post-Quake Japan: news, experiences, and thoughts
Tag Archives: Sendai Green Tide Embankment Can Hole Diggers and Acorn Gatherers Save theEarth?
11) Ozawa, N., n.d. Crop Insurance Performance in Japan: Some Preliminary Observations 4–5.
12) Presentation_DRRWG_Handover_DeBrief_BRACED_Feb2018, n.d.
13) Spitzer, K., 2020. 5 years later, Japan still struggles to recover from tsunami disaster 8–10.
1–7.

26

UNESCO CHAIR WENDI CREATING RESILIENT SOCIETY

A Key Practical Concept to Create Resilient Society
through Omoyai (おもやい) -Sharing and CoexistingRyo TSUCHIDA
Graduate School of
Advanced Integrated Studies
in Human Survivability
Master Student in 3rd year
1．Background of Disaster Volunteer Centers
In this paper, the author focuses on a private
volunteer center "Omoyai Volunteer Center(hereafter call “Omoyai VC”)" established in Takeo
City, Saga Prefecture, which was damaged by thetorrential rain in northern Kyushu in 2019. The
purpose of this paper is to clarify how Omoyai VC
works to solve local problems in disaster recovery
and reconstruction by focusing on resilience thinking.
At first, Omoyai ( お も や い ) means “sharing andcoexisting”, and which is a Japanese word originallyfrom Kyushu region dialect.
From August 27, 2019, due to the active
weather front, the area of heavy rain spread over awide area of Kyushu, causing heavy rain mainly inNagasaki Prefecture, Saga Prefecture, and Fukuoka
Prefecture, which resulted in extensive damage invarious places [1]. In response to a request from thecity of Takeo, which suffered damage, citizens of
Takeo, who had experience in disaster relief, andprivate volunteer groups from inside and outside of
the prefecture cooperated to launch "Omoyai VC" asa private volunteer center. The volunteer center plays
an intermediate role in understanding the needs of thedisaster victims, and after volunteer supporters havematched the needs of the disaster victims to solve theneeds, the supporters visit the disaster victims andhelp them solve the needs.
Generally speaking, in Japan, there have been
tons of issues about disaster volunteers since the1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake partly
because of the failure to grasp and coordinate theneeds of disaster victims. Therefore, the "Disaster
VCs" were established by the local Council of Social
Welfare (社会福祉協議会) as a sector to grasp andorganize the needs of disaster victims for volunteers
who come immediately after the disaster and tocoordinate activities in the affected areas [2]. In 2013,
the Disaster Countermeasures Basic Act (災害対策基本法) stipulated that the local government would
make efforts to cooperate with volunteers, and thegovernment was obliged to take suchcountermeasures. However, since most of theemployees of the Council of Social Welfare and theadministrative staff live in the disaster-stricken areas,
it is difficult for them to respond to disasters bythemselves in the event of a disaster involving
administrative functions such as the Great East Japan
Earthquake in 2011. As a result, systems such asexternal support have gradually been developed, andexternal support personnel such as support for verbal
communication and block dispatch by prefecture are
now involved in the management of disaster VC [2].
As Daimon & Atsumi claimed that through thefieldwork at Kumamoto after the Kumamoto
Earthquake, the authors learned that many welfare
council staff in Mashiki town were also affected by theearthquake but had to work at the VC to matchvolunteers with survivors’ needs [2]. During the early
response stage (about 1-2month), the social welfare

27and observed mainly as a volunteer to clean affectedhousings and rooms, and as a staff to help the eventfor revitalizing on the site (Fig 2 & 3). Hereafter, theauthor describes what I saw and did what is based on
the field notes and fieldwork.

council staff worked to support survivors even though
the staffs were also survivors. However, they weresometimes compelled to refuse support to survivors due
to bureaucratic rules despite understanding their needs.
On the whole, the welfare staff had to become
supporters of survivors but faced barriers that the rules
didn’t satisfy with the needs, while they were also
survivors, but by refusing survivors’ needs, they failed
to fulfill this role.
On the other hand, Omoyai VC is very uniquecompared with the above cases, because this VC is notorganized by the local Council of Social Welfare, but by
local and general volunteers. That means, the staffs are
not social welfare council staffs, but local people andalso affected persons in Takeo City (Fig 1).
To rethink the situation of VC and therelationship between resilience and the VC, resilienceis broadly defined ‘as the capability of building systems
that can keep their functions even after the impact of
unexpected events’ [3]. To emphasize the linkage ofhuman, social and ecological systems and resilienceaims at fostering human resources who can engage increating resilient societies collaboratively. However,
the relationship between VC and resilience still
remains a key topic to be investigated. That is why,
hereafter, this paper tries to do a deep dive into
resilience
thinking
throughOmoyai.

Fig 2. A work in a day as disaster volunteer(Tearing up the floor with a crowbar)

Fig 3. Chatting and playing some games with local elderly people
at a small community center

2020/02/14 Evening
I arrived at Omoyai VC and met Mr. S who is a
representative of VC. I briefly introduced myself and heaccepted some circumstances. He told me the story
about the launch of Omoyai VC and how the VC
works in locally. After the hard rain disaster in Takeo
city, some volunteers personally visited the homes of
their acquaintances and cleaned them up. However,they noticed that since the area has a large number of
elderly people (actually one third are elderly people
in Takeo city), there must be many people who do notknow what to ask the "volunteer" and how to ask
them to help. On September 4, "Team Omoyai" waslaunched and started its activities. On September 7, a

Fig 1. A Whole View of Omoyai VC(This center was originally kindergarten, but the kindergarten
was closed as a low birthrate. After the hard rain disaster, somevolunteers reused as a center for DVC now)

2．Omoyai VC
The author conducted fieldwork at Omoyai VC
for 5 days in February 2020. The author participated28

private volunteer center was established incoordination with the Social Welfare Volunteer
Center.
Mr. S said that in order to ensure that no ones areleft behind including the victims of the disaster, we
will cooperate with various organizations and people
to create "community" that will make them to rethink"Still, I'm glad I'm living here" and "community" thatwill make them to feel "I'm glad I came here." Now,
this center teamed up with 44 organizations including
outside of Saga Prefecture, and some universities,
Non-Profit Organizations, International NonGovernmental Organizations and so on. Therefore,
he thought that it is important how to manage on thesite with a wide variety of human resources andorganizations not only to help people but also to sharethe emotions and coexist with their lives.
After his story, I participated in a small meetingwith the VC staff at the center. They discussed some
topics such as a number of today’s volunteers, reportand awareness of today’s activities, sharing
information, other topics to be discussed, plans of
tomorrow’s activity, and how to allocate staff at thecenter tomorrow. During the meeting, staff told usthat when the staff went to and joined the general
meeting for disaster rehabilitation organized by Saga
Prefecture, the staff thought that it is difficult tonegotiate for how the affected people feel and live
precariously from day to day with little
compensation with official officers. “They are not on
the same page as us. They exclude people.” After thiscomplaint, Mr. S told us “Yes, exactly there are someproblems with councils. But, we just do as a private
VC. Live together with local residents.”

rather than at home. In particular, the VC staffs try toapproach self-displaced people repeatedly so that thestaff could be trusted to meet. According to thehearing at the club, the following issues werementioned as problems that emerged from the flood;
・Disaster in areas with many elderly households,
・Inexperience with no volunteer support,
・Concerns that the sustainability of the region will
decline if this situation is left unaddressed,
・Fear that some may be left behind by the lack of
information, and・Fear of not knowing what to do about water
disasters.
However, still facing these serious situations in
Takeo city, an 81 years old woman said to me “ I amvery happy now. My husband has gone 30 years ago,so I am lonely. I managed this club with other elderly
people, but it is too hard to manage now. Like thisclub and the festival yesterday, there are lots of local
people and we can communicate and share somefeelings with each other not only elderly
communities but also young and outside people. That
communication made me cheered up even though
they are unknown people. Thanks to Omoyai VC, I
am not lonely. Please keep continuing Omoyai VC
activities with us.”4．Creating a Resilient Society
Going back to consider resilience, it is understoodas ‘the capability of building systems that can keep theirfunctions even after the impact of unexpected events’[3]. How does the Omoyai VC leverage thecommunity and resilience? The VC tried to create thelinkage of human, social systems through someevents as well as volunteer works. Aiming to foster
human resources who can engage in creating resilient
societies collaboratively for the present and future,
the Omoyai VC aims to change its approach from VC
centered thinking to community-centered thinking toengage with the community, people, and VC.
Because Omoyai VC is a private voluntary
association now, the VC can freely think and connect
with others by reaching out to what the staffs andcommunities are aware of (Fig 4). By skillfully
borrowing the power and resources from the outsideand conveying the thoughts of the local people andstaff, we can surely demonstrate the power here. It is

3．Omoyai VC ‘with’ the Local
Some other day of helping the center as avolunteer staff, I visited a festival at the Omoyai VC
for local people. Also, I had an opportunity toparticipate in Iki-Iki club (gathering and chatting withsnacks and tea) for elderly people at a small
community center (Fig 3).
During the festival and the club, I listened andtalked to elderly people. They said that many of themevacuated at home or voluntarily. The challenges ofdisaster and aging have created a situation in which
the only option was to continue evacuating at home29

important not to exclude individual residents because
residents are not the customers who receive social
welfare services from the government, but themembers who form the community like government
officials.
The author does not want to evaluate whether thecase of Omoyai VC is successful or not quickly at thistime. However, this case can provide a key practicalconcept in seeking for what is a better way to createa resilient society through mutual assistance in areas
where the population continues to decline. The
author believed that there are potential or possibilities
to coexist with the local through this case study tosurvive and transform in the locality which hasserious problems such as facing super-aging society,and depopulation after the critical disasters.

な支援活動を受け入れる地域の『受援力』を高
め
る
た
め
に
:
http://www.bousai.go.jp/kyoiku/pdf/juenryoku.pdf（2020 年 2 月 25 日アクセス）
渥美公秀(2014): 災害ボランティア-新しい社
会へのグループ・ダイナミックス-, 弘文堂.
宮本匠 (2017): 「災害と共生」を前にして-内発的であるとは何か-, 災害と共生, 1(1) pp.2126.
宮本匠 (2018): 第 11 章 災害ボランティアと現代社会, p.180-191, 室﨑益輝, 冨永良喜, 兵
庫県立大学大学院減災復興政策研究科 編, 災
害に立ち向かう人づくり-減災社会構築と被災地復興の礎-, ミネルヴァ書房.
矢守克也, 渥美公秀 編著, 近藤誠司, 宮本
匠 著 (2011):防災・減災の人間科学-いのちを支える, 現場に寄り添う-, 新曜社.

Fig 4. Omoyai Tree (Omoyai no Ki)(Volunteer staffs, affected people, volunteer from outside of Saga
prefecture imagined and wrote down their hope, future, needs
and opinion and attached this tree picture)

Reference
1) 内閣府(2019):「令和元年 8 月の前線に伴う大雨に係る被害状況等について」36p.
2) 大門大朗, 渥美公秀(2018): 災害後の被災地における被災者と支援者の関係を考える-2016
年熊本地震における災害ボランティアセンタ
ーの事例から-, 災害と共生, Vol. 2(1), p.25-32.
3) Shimizu, M., & Clark, A. L. (2019): Introductionin Through Innovative Dimensions. In Nexus of
Resilience and Public Policy in a Modern Risk
Society, pp. 1-11, Springer.
Others
内閣府 (2010). 防災ボランティア活動の多様30

UNESCO CHAIR WENDI CREATING RESILIENT SOCIETY

Can the establishment of tide protection forest be one of the resilience approaches after
Tohoku Disaster?
A case study of Iwanuma City, Miyagi Prefecture
Akari Phyu Phyu Thet
Graduate School of Agriculture
D3

short term as well as long term (Shimizu andYasui, 2012).
After the disaster, the government, thelocal people and the volunteers tried to recover
the various impacts affected by the disaster.
Shimizu and Yasui (2012) stated that even one
year after the Tohoku disaster, there aretremendous social and economic problems suchas removal of many tons of debris, shelter
management, relocation to new residence areas,
public health for radioactive concern andpsychological issues, unemployment issues andlocal economy issues including fishery,
agriculture, and tourisms. To solve these issues
and recover the affected areas, the estimatedindirect cost of 35 to 60 trillion yen(approximately US$ 453 to 766 billion) was
spent.

１ ． Background Information of Tohoku
Disaster
The Great East Japan Earthquake(GEJE) struck 130 km east of Sendai city in the
East Coast of the Honshu Island, Japan on March
11th 2011. It took about five minute andproduced the violent shaking which destroyed
the untold number of roads and buildings. Afterthe earthquake, tsunami waves struck theEastern seaboard of Japan with a wave towering
in excess of 12-16 m (Holguin-Veras J et. al.,2011).
In the Tohoku region, the most criticalinfrastructure affected by that disaster are theSendai Airport, Port of Sendai, Tohoku
Motorway, Johan Expressway, Routes 4, 6 and45, the East-West arterials connecting the
Tohoku Motorway to the coastal areas,
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant and Onagawa
Nuclear Plant (Holguin-Veras J et. al., 2011). In
addition, agriculture and human settlement inhundreds of miles of populated area wereaffected. In disaster history, the earthquake andtsunami of the Tohoku disaster are among thestrongest on record in Japan (Holguin-Veras J et.
al., 2011). The miraculous large-scale disaster
caused not only human (approximately 16,000
death tolls and 3,300 missing) and physical(more than 14 city, town or village publicbuildings including disaster management
centers) but also social and economic impacts in

２ ． Resilience Approach after Tohoku
Disaster in Iwanuma City, Miyagi Prefecture
Our tour group visited the Tohoku region
from 28th to 30th September 2019, in order tolearn how the ongoing recovery work from the2011 Tohoku disaster is related to resilience orresilience approach.
I use the word ofresilience here, which is the capacity to recoverfrom the disaster or the ability to withstandshocks (Alexander, 2013). A resilience approachmakes the system, which can facilitate to recoverfrom the past disaster and to resist against the31future disasters.
Currently, the Tohoku region is still
carrying out the ongoing recovery processes
after the disaster. Among them, theestablishment of tide protection forest, one
resilience approach in Iwanuma City, Miyagi
Prefecture, observed during the tour is described
below.
In order to recover from the disaster, theresidents of Sendai city and non-profit
organizations including volunteers had beenplanting approximately 33,000 trees of 60
different native tree varieties at Rinnouji Temple,
Iwanuma City, since 8 years ago, under theguidance of Prof. Akira Miyawaki, a botanist(Doryu H, 2011). And the project of green tideembankment was also carried out under theleadership of the Head Priest of Rinnouji Temple,
according to the suggestion of Prof. Miyawaki.

layer types of trees (tall trees, medium-heighttrees and short trees) because the root of thosenative broad-leave species could penetrate
deeply into the soil at the highest level of natural
strength and were able to resistant to disease andinsects. In 15-20 years after planting the trees, aforest that will protect the human and theirproperties from the tide and tsunami will beobtained.
The tide protection forests may result inmany advantages for the local people. In theview of disaster risk management, when thetsunami strikes, the tide protection forest will
stand as a green seawall to break the tsunami up,
by reducing its strength and lowering its speed
and wave height, in order to earn more time toevacuate the people. When the tides recede,that forest will prevent the people and theproperties being washed out to the sea. In theeconomic and social points of view, the planted
tree will last for many decades and when thetrees become taller, the local people can cut
down and utilized for the household use in orderto save the regional economy. In theenvironmental point of view, the planted trees
become taller and larger and finally become anaturally occurring forest. At that time, that
forest will absorb the carbon dioxide (CO2),
which emitted by human development activities
such as the emission of CO2 from industries andmotorcar driving etc. Reduction of carbon
emission is important to climate change
mitigation. And that forest will release theoxygen (O2), which are necessary for humanbeings.
And Shimizu and Clark (2019) also
described that the characteristics of formationand implementation of the project of the tideprotection forest from the view of resilience asfollow:
1) Tide protection forests protect the people
from the future tsunami and provide thegreen space for future generation, whichis eco-friendly and results in both landand sea conservation.
2) The forest addresses the city’snecessities in the short-, mid- and long-

Photo of the campus of Rinnouji Temple,
Iwanuma City
In Iwanuma City, there was a mountainof debris after the disaster. The project sorted thedebris at the disaster area to remove thepoisonous and indecomposable waste materials
and dug a hole of 10 m depth and 30 m width in
the seashore and filled the hole with the mixtureof the soil and the debris. On the top of that, amound of 20-30m height was created forplanting the trees. When planting trees for tideprotection forests to protect the future tsunami,
the most critical factor is the right choice of tree
species, which are suitable to the area. They
selected and planted the native and evergreen
broad-leave tree species including the multi-

32

establishment of forest seawall against thetsunami in other seashores in the Tohoku region.
And this resilience approach may also be
applicable in the coastlines of South East Asian
countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand
and Myanmar, affected by the tsunami very
often, since UNISDR (2010) affirmed thattsunami was the third dominant disaster risk interms of human casualties in South East Asia
during the last 40 years (1970-2009).

terms by connecting the past (disaster),current(recovery),andfuture(sustainability), and by connecting
natural (ecological), human and social
systems.
3) The project is collaboration between thecity,scientists,
andnon-profit
organizations including volunteers withdifferent backgrounds, which links
different stakeholders and generations
and people inside and outside of the city.

Reference
1) Holguin-Veras J et. al. 2012. The tohoku
disasters: Preliminary findings concerning
the post disaster humanitarian logistics
response. Annual Meeting of theTransportation Research Board, Wasjongton
DC.
2) Shimizu M. and Yasui T. 2012. Great East
Japan Earthquake Disaster in 2011: Lessons
in public management.
http://lab.sdm.keio.ac.jp/idc/yasui/papers/c1
0_2012ilas_shimizu_yasui.pdf3) Alexander DE. 2013. Resilence and disasterrisk reduction: An etymological journey.
Natural Hazards and Earth System Science,
13(11) 2707-2716.
4) Doryu H. 2011. Creating forests that protect
live: A green tide embankment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FH1r
Hhqs105) Shimizu M. and Clark AL. 2019. A modern
risk society and resilience-based public
policy: Nexus of resilience and public policy
in a modern risk society, 13-30.
6) Jackson S. 2010. Architecting resiliencesystem: Accident avoidance and survival andrecovery form disruptions, New Jersey: John
Wiley and Sons, Inc.
7) UNISDR 2010. Synthesis report on ten
ASEAN countries disaster risks assessment:
ASEAN disaster risk management initiative.
https://www.preventionweb.net/files/18872_asean.pdf

Photo of Tide Protection Forest behind theTsunami Memorial Monument, Iwanuma
City
3．Conclusion based on the knowledge about
Tide Protection Forest from Tohoku TourIn conclusion, the establishment of tideprotection forest has many advantages from thevarious points of views as above-mentioned,
although the tide protection forest (forest
seawall) may not be as strong as the concrete
wall and it may take at least 15-20 years to
become a mature forest to protect from thetsunami. In addition, the tide protection forest
will stand for many centuries and so it may
provide long-term resistance from the tide andthe tsunami. Therefore, the establishment of tideprotection forest or forest seawall is one of theeffective and efficient resilience approaches forthe future tsunami according to the definition ofresilience, which is a systemic approach todisaster avoidance, survival and recovery withexpertise from a multitude of disciplines to an
unprecedented degree （Jackson, 2010). Thus,
the local government should encourage the33

UNESCO CHAIR WENDI - CREATING RESILIENT SOCIETY

Communication as linkage among stakeholders to improve resilience ininternational cooperation
Larissa de Miranda Alem
Graduate School of Global
Environmental Studies
Master Student - 2nd year
1. Introduction
International cooperation has long been an
important opportunity for developing relationships
between countries and for promoting a widely
diversified range of scopes. Major international
documents, notoriously the Paris Agreement andthe 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
recognize cooperation as a mechanism to achievesustainable development goals, not only at thenational government level, but also at regional andlocal spheres, bringing together different sectors of
stakeholders, such as national governments,
international community, civil society, and theprivate sector.
Resilience can be broadly understood as
the system’s capacity to change while adjusting tostress in order to maintain the long-termsustainability of a human-environment system(Stokols, Lejano, Hipp, 2013), or as the capabilityof building systems that can function even after thebump of unexpected events, by recognizing thesesystems broadly, supported by its various linkages(Shimizu and Clark, 2019). When systems are
considered broadly, and not individually, then theidea of linkage is essential to build resilience,
because it recognizes that systems are connected
and influence each other (Fiksel, 2006).
Linkage can be understood in different
manners, such as linkage of resources, systems andstakeholders. In the case of intercity collaboration,
the primordial linkage that can be recognized isamong the people involved in the activities andconnected by communication. A participatory,
open and wide communication is a minimum
requirement for international cooperation beconsidered resilient and adjust to stresses andchallenges that may arise in the process.
Communication is not only a way to exchange
knowledge and information, but also local needs,
capacities, interests and priorities from involved
agents, who are from different cultures,
understandings and backgrounds.
Since its industrialization, Japan became
one the most active countries in international
cooperation. Japanese cities undertook the role as
sub-national actors able to connect the domestic
and the international environment, in the sense ofturning global strategies into local action (Takao,2017). Moreover, in the last decade, Japanese
government has been expanding more multistakeholder governance schemes, prioritizing
higher participation and engagement of multiple
stakeholders, such as NGOs, universities andprivate sector (Kato, 2016).
One of the most engaged cities ininternational cooperation is Kitakyushu, inFukuoka Prefecture. In the 1960s, the city was torn
by a serious air and sea pollution due to its intense
industrial activities, but multiple stakeholders
were engaged through partnerships to recover theenvironmental quality of the city (IGES, 2018).
Among other projects, Kitakyushu is involved in a34

cooperation scheme for exchanging know-how for
improvement of waste management in Davao City,in Philippines, a growing city with over 1.5 million
inhabitants that produces 600 to 700 thousands kg
of waste per day.
This research conducted semi-structured
interviews with key stakeholders from both local
governments and local agencies for international
cooperation, directly involved in the collaboration
activities: in total, six individuals interviews withJapanese stakeholders and one group interview
with eight Philippine stakeholders were conductedfrom October until December of 2019, with theobjective of accessing the communication aspects
that influence the process of cooperation between
these cities.

highlighted that Philippine agents are not only very
fluent in English, but also very friendly andreceptive, either from the city government,barangay officers, or citizens, was a driver forcommunication. As for the Philippine respondents,
the group expressed their satisfaction with thecommunication with Japanese stakeholders, notonly for the speed, but also for the considerate
support, so they were very satisfied about the
openness of the dialogue among them.
The presence of any situation of conflictamong stakeholders was also inquired during theinterviews. Japanese and Philippine respondents
agreed that the participants in international
cooperation are respectful and are not likely to facea delicate situation of quarrel or hard topic, since
the effort from both sides is targeted to enhance theconditions of waste management in Davao.
However, there are some challenges that arise,such as changes in the staff involved in the project(problem that was faced in both cities), delayed
response mainly from Philippine agents’ side, andnecessity to conciliate the collaboration activities
with political intention in Davao.
Question was raised about differences on
the communication among Japanese andPhilippine stakeholders. Japanese respondents
referred to an inner cultural difference between
Japanese and Philippine’s commitment, in thesense that Japanese stakeholders are more serious
and punctual; besides, the conversation in a
Japanese group is easier in the sense that people
have similar knowledge, background andunderstanding, while the knowledge andbackground in Philippines is different and requires
more time to establish an understanding.
Philippine respondents also mentioned that thesense of urgency between Philippines andJapaneses is different and, while Japanesestakeholders are punctual, Philippine people tend
to be more laid-back, even if the reason behind it
is culture or busy schedule; besides, among
Philippine agents, specially from the city
government, the communication is consideredefficient, not only because the staff members arecooperative with other offices, but also because
they have their own communication application,
developed by the IT team from city government.

2.
Communication
drivers
andchallenges
Communicationininternational
cooperation faces its first struggle in the sense that,during most of the time, the stakeholders are
distant from each other, in their respective
countries. Online communication can support
mainly logistics issues (such as selecting
participants for study tour, setting date and detailsof missions or events), but the discussion about
details and contents of the project must be done
through face to face meetings, through a few hours
of dialogue. Although the online communication
was supported by easy access to internet
connection from both sides, it was a challenge toadjust to the different uses of online tools: while
the Japanese agents use email on the daily life andpromptly reply to it, the Philippine side mostly
utilizes the Facebook Messenger and takes a longtime to reply the email. To solve this issue, thestakeholders agreed on using email for official
communication, and Facebook Messenger as areminder that an email was received.
The communication openness was alsopresented as driver and challenge for thecollaboration. During the interviews, Japanesestakeholders referred that it is very typical thatstakeholders in the developing country side arequiet and refrain from voicing out new proposals,
and they might feel uncomfortable if a project does
not match with their mayor’s intention. Despite
this challenge, Japanese respondents also35

Communicationininternational
cooperation can be a long arduous process, withmany perspectives and functions. It can support
relationship-building
among
involved
stakeholders, developing trust and familiarity
between different sides; it establishes anenvironment of information-sharing and capacitybuilding, as agents can exchange knowledge,know-how, ideas, proposals and data that cancreate a common understanding about a problem
and its solution; it defines rules and conventions inorder to solve conflicts, misunderstandings, anddisagreements; and it encourages the sharing ofinterests, priorities, strengths and limitations ofstakeholders.

For Shimizu and Clark (2019), linkage is
one of the operational lenses or components for a
resilience-based approach. Building or enhancing
linkagemeansdeveloping
trustworthy
relationships and interactive communication,
understanding the linkage in many dimensions,and coordinating function for all this dimensions.
The importance of linkage emerge with theunderstanding that a holistic overview of resilience
requires that different systems are identified, alongwith their boundaries. Systems and subsystems
influence each other, and components of resiliencecan be incorporated in community and local or
national systems through public policy (Shimizu
and Clark, 2019).
As mentioned in the previous section, an
efficient communication establishes a common
ground that can provide a vast range of awarenessto be considered by stakeholders in decisionplanning and making. If there is a goodunderstanding among agents and a fair share of
information about the projects and involved people,
there is a higher chance of addressing emerging
challenges and adjusting to disturbances, stresses
and events that can interfere, delay or hinderinternational
cooperation.
Therefore,
communication enhances the resilience ofinternational cooperation by strengthening thelinkage among stakeholders.

3. Communication: linkage builder
towards resilience
Resilience is characterized for three mainfeatures: (I) persistence, which means the ability tochange but still remain within a stability domain,(II) adaptability, which is the capacity to adjust tointernal or external impacts, and (III)transformability, capacity to create stability
despite the disturbance (Folke, Carpenter, Walker,
Scheffer, Chaplin, and Rockström, 2010).
Persistence, adaptability and transformability are
the basis for the understanding that resilience in asystem is dynamic, complex and interwined withother systems. When a system is struck by an eventthat disturbs its functioning and activities, theimpacts of such event are predictable or isolated
from a broad context, because different elementsfrom a system are connected with this system but
also with the systems beyond.
In this sense, linkage is proposed byliterature as basic element to build resilience.
Linkage can be understood in different dimensions,such as linkage between resources, systems, andstakeholders. To understand the existence andimportance of linkage is to recognize that thiscomplex net of elements mutually influence eachother and, therefore, must be consideredholistically when addressing resilience in public
policies. In this sense, linkages have to beconsidered in project-making or public policy, toaddress the influence that a system have on others,
as well as the influence of others in it.

4. Conclusion and way forward
International cooperation is a complex,
time-consuming process that requires open andrespectful dialogue, information-sharing, full
involvement of stakeholders, as well as wide
investigation of their interests, demands andpriorities. The more diversified the group of
involved stakeholders, the more interests should be
explored and discussed, and the more likely to
become a challenging procedure. In this vein,collaboration at the international level approaches
stakeholders not only with diverse interests, butalso with different culture, language, ethnicity,religion, economic background, standing indistinct political, legal, and institutionalarrangements.
Despite that, convening such a variety of
stakeholders, who are willing to sit on the sametable and discuss until reaching a common
36understanding and a joint solution, is also a fruitfullearning opportunity; actors can bridge various
perspectives and share information, knowledge,
governance and project experience, andtechnologies to address diverse issues.
For this research, communication wasconsidered by most respondents as the mostimportant and critical driver for international
cooperation, not only for the demand of express
and share various perspectives on the problems
and solutions, but also as the tool for conflict
resolution, for project development, and to reachan agreement. When so many different
stakeholders with particular profiles and priorities
assemble, sometimes one’s interests and needs are

not visible from the very beginning by the others.
Additional challenge is that the initial weakconnection between stakeholders might cause thatsome actors are not comfortable in freely
expressing their opinions or stances. Establishingopen lines of communication requires time, faceto-face meetings, events, casual meals, and otherpractices that can enhance trust building, warming
up, and familiarity among participants. Moreover,communication was presented as a necessary
instrument to foster and strengthen the linkage
among stakeholder and, thereupon, as amechanism to support international cooperation
resilience.

References
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Folke, C., Carpenter, S., Walker, B., Scheffer, M., Chapin, T., & Rockström, J. (2010). Resilience thinking:integrating resilience, adaptability and transformability. Ecology and society 15 (4). Retrieved from:http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol15/iss4/art20/
IGES (2018). Actions for a Sustainable Society: Collaboration between Asia and the City of Kitakyushu.
Retrieved from: https://iges.or.jp/jp/pub/actions-sustainable-society-collaboration
Kato, H. (2016). Japan’s ODA 1954-2014: Changes and continuities in a central instrument in Japan’s foreign
policy. In: Japan s development assistance: foreign Aid and the post-2016 agenda. DOI:
10.1057/9781137505385_1
Shimizu, M., & Clark, A. L. 2019. Introduction in Through Innovative Dimensions. In Nexus of Resilience andPublic Policy in a Modern
Risk Society, pp. 1 11.
Shimizu, M., & Clark, A. L. (2019). Resilience Based Approaches and Public Policy: Operational Views. In
Nexus of Resilience and Public Policy in a Modern Risk Society, pp. 33 52.
Stokols, D., Lejano, R. P., Hipp, J. (2013). Enhancing the Resilience of Human-Environment Systems: a Social
Ecological Perspective. DOI: 10.5751/ES-05301-180107
Takao, Y. (2017). Subnational participation in extra-national policy solutions: Kitakyushu City as an intermediate
agent in policy coordination. DOI: 10.1080/09512748.2017.1282537

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