Stories of
MIYAGI

By the Great East Japan Earthquake, people in Miyagi Prefecture who suffered enormous damage, reaffirmed the strength of the community, and have been striving to rebuild an attractive city holding appreciation in their heart for both domestic and overseas supporters.

Promoting projects from the viewpoint of high school students.
Certified Nonprofit Organization 'Sokoage' in Miyagi prefecture

Picture of Thank you from the high school students in Kesennuma.

Thank you from the high school students in Kesennuma.

Sokoage was established in 2012,　as a certified NPO in Miyagi. It was established by Mr. Hiroaki Yabe (Representative Director) who was a leader and he was doing many support activities in Kesennuma City during the disaster. He wished that the people who leads the next generation to be independent and support each other.
The activities are taken by high school students in Kesennuma City and the surrounding area. They are involved in the reconstruction support and the community development, learning about the community from adults, and proposing and implementing the exchange and regional development that they came up with the viewpoint of high school students. Each student has awareness of the problem, finds issues in the community or in the daily life, has been promoting a project that can be undertaken only by high school students to find and solve the problems. They are operating "free space" as a place for exchanging opinions and "role-playing Kesennuma" as a place to explore Kesennuma City. The activities, which are not only for the students from Kesennuma City and not only for the high school students, but also university students and members of society from the all Tohoku region, have held the meetings widely, and carried out the projects to think about Tohoku and local communities such as 'Drinks' which is the cross-generational exchange, 'Exchange meetings for the high school students in Tohoku' which is the exchange program for the high school students in the Tohoku region, and 'SOKOAGE CAMP' which is a training camp for six days.
As time has passed since the earthquake disaster, the disaster has became a trigger to develop the human resources to build their future in Kesennuma, Miyagi and Tohoku, and the linkage of learning is ready for expanding to Kesennuma to Miyagi and Tohoku.

Address: 2-2-12 Minamigaoka, Kesennuma City, Miyagi Prefecture

Website: Certified Nonprofit Organization 'Sokoage'
http://sokoage.org/