Consideration to foreign residents
Disaster drills with “every” resident
A foreign woman who has lived in Japan for
over 30 years is a leader of a women’s group
in a local voluntary disaster prevention
organization. In disaster drills in this town,
foreign women have also attended. However,
regrettably, one of the foreign women who
came to town recently died in the tsunami.
She had never participated in the drills
because she went to work in another town
and did not know the neighbours so well. On
the day of the disaster, she was in the town.
The leader feels sorry for her wondering if she
could not find an evacuation site and did not
understand the radio.
In the evacuation center, foreign residents as
well as foreign assistance organizations came.
The female leader did a lot of coordination
between affected people and supporters. She
translated at evacuation centers, and
accompanied foreign circulating medical
teams.
The names of foreign residents were not
registered with their Japanese family on the
affected people’s list, but were separated
because they are managed under a foreign
registration list, not by the Basic Resident
Registration in which Japanese people are
registered with local governments. These are
requests from foreign residents, “I would like
to be treated as a resident; the same as family
members and neighbours.” “I want people
who cannot speak Japanese to be able to
participate in evacuation drills together.”