I am going to Tsunami disaster area from today, and work on a project: creating an “Ibasho cafe,” partnering with OperationUSA. We will visit disaster area and meet with people who live in temporary housing community, and work together to create an “ibasho”. This cafe is NOT going to be a “senior center” where elders have scheduled visits to socialize with others and receive care, but the place where elders are involved in design, construction, and operation by providing their wisdom, experience, and compassion to the community. We envision this cafe to be a social hub where people of all ages will come and spend their time as they wish. In this project, I strongly believe that maintaining the concept of “informality” at the cafe is so critical for local residents to find their own “ibasho”.

I will be blogging my trip from Japan, so that you can see what we are doing to help elders in disaster area to have their life worth living.

It has been a long time since I wrote my last blog post. I now realized that Japan’s earthquake/tsunami event impacted on me so much that I could not bring myself to write about my ideas–almost one year. I am so grateful that elders in disaster area gave me strength to share my thoughts to others again…

Look forward to your comments and wisdom to help us make this project successful!