How can we define “success”?

When we decide to create a “community driven” project, it naturally leads us to face complex issues. During the process, we empowered elders to voice their opinions and come up with concensus among other members of the community. Which means that we just have to trust elders to lead and community members to collaborate together to make decisions. As we all know, there is no such a thing as “perfect community.” Some may not get along with others, people from outside of the community move in, some are wealther than others, and etc… Operating a small place like a “Ibasho cafe” in a real community, there are still a lot […]

Care v.s. support

I do care about someone, that is why I like to support the person. When we care too much, our emotion takes over our behavior. We tend to impose our idea of “this is the way we should provide care” and sometimes forget about “what support the person would like to obtain.” How can we maintain the balance between care and support? I would say “Directly ask the person who you care for.” We often overlook the importance of “ones’ making own decision” in elder care settings. We all like to make our own decision about our life. We can simply see that when we observe children. Why do we […]

Research first and social well-being next?

I was just told by a research that “To evaluate the effectiveness of ibasho cafe, you have to deliver a perfect ibasho cafe within 5 months.” I was trained as a researcher, spent many years of learning and conducting researches. Now, I choose to be a practitioner to apply my idea of ibsho. I struggle to understand the researchers who want to impose their agenda and timeline on the projects that have a critical impact on the life of elders. When we allow evaluations to determine how and when the projects to be delivered, we will completely miss out the true beautify of community initiative project. This researcher will never […]

Who decide?

We had the Ibasho’s board retreat today. I am so grateful to have such wonderful board members and friends who gathered to discuss how we can achieve our goal of “creating socially integrated and sustainable communities that value their elders.” During the discussion, a question was posed “What does Ibasho do that others don’t do?” Some may think that “Isn’t Ibasho café the same as senior center?” I have sit down in a quiet place and thought about it for a while… Looking through my notes and all the pictures from our projects, I can clearly say that “We believe in elders’ wisdom and experience to reinvent our communities. We […]

Where is our hope?: 2 years after the Eastern Japan Great Earthquake Disaster

“We need a hope, otherwise, we cannot make sense out of our loss. We were motivated to bring our normal life back, but it is getting so hard to keep motivating ourselves lately. We just need tangible changes that we can see to keep us motivated to bounce back.” A Japanese woman who donated her old farmhouse for the Ibasho cafe project quietly spoke to me one day. She lost 8 family members as well as her house at this incident, and living in a temporary housing ever since. She and her husband are rebuilding their house, but it has been delayed for a long time. I have also heard the […]

Am I making elders work in the Ibasho cafe????

A comment that surprised me today… “I cannot believe that you are making elders work at the Ibasho cafe in the disaster area in Japan! Your project is not kind to elders.” I was simply shocked to hear the comment. I seriously believed that “Ibasho cafe is giving opportunities for local elders to be useful to others. They can share their valuable wisdom and experience regardless of their physical and cognitive capacities.” Almost all the elders whom I talked to at the disaster area said that “I am thankful for all the support that we have received from all over the world. However, it is getting a bit too much for […]

Ibasho sozo project- not for profit organization is formally approved

The first ibasho cafe in the disaster area in Japan is under construction now, and we have another exciting news. Elders in Massaki area in Ofunato city Japan formed a not for profit orgazation to operate this cafe as a community initiative. On February 28, this organization was formally approved by the city. Who said “older people cannot start social enterprise”? We belive that their wisdom and experience are critical part of the recovery process in the disaster area. We are confident that those elders will be great resources for younger generations in this community. We are opening the cafe on June 13th, 2013, so will be busy for the […]

Construction starts!

We have just received good news from Japan that we were waiting for a LONG TIME! Building permit for the Japan Ibasho cafe was finally approved! Thanks to all our talented team members who have been generously supporting this initiative. We still have a lot to figure out before the opening, but I am certain that we can make this project truly a community project for the local people in a disaster area. This is one big milestone to reach that we should simply cerebrate! We will keep working hard to reach the next milestone… Journey continues.

Brick walls: give us a chance to show how badly we want something

Ibasho cafe in the disaster area is supposed to be a straightforward project, yet there are many issues and challenges arise, especially when we feel that it is making progress. Yes, I am frustrated by the layers of bureaucracy that have to give us reasons to slow down and discourage us. I am sure that this situation happens to many projects for disaster relief globally. When I visit the disaster area and see how people live, I feel so frustrated by how things are in Japan. There are so many “talking” but so little “doing” from both central and local governments in the current situation. When we try to take […]

I will not like to be treated as a commodity… so as our elders.

I often question whether or not I am doing a right thing for elders through my work. Although I am (so as many others) genuinely interested in improving the life of growing number of elders who deserve to have a normal life in the place where they feel accepted. However, we might also help to create (without knowing) an unfortunate social situation where elders are treated as commodity of “silver business” or “elder care business,” if we are not careful. We cannot ignore the economical impact caused by “aging society,” however, when we loose the sight of “honoring elders”,  we all become a victim of our own fault in the near future. […]

Extending to others the kind of concern we have for ourselves makes us healthy

I have been reading news paper articles about lonely death among elderly persons and discussions regarding how to treat mothers with baby cart in public transportation in Japan, and gained serious concerns toward how selfish we have become in our modern society. These articles make me think why we have so many “unhappy” people in one of the richest countries like Japan. So, where is the “unhappiness” coming from? What can we do to be simply “happy”? I found a Dalai Lama’s quote about compassion being helpful. “The ultimate source of a happy life is warm-heartedness. This means extending to others the kind of concern we have for ourselves. On […]

Questions for 2013

Although these questions are so simple, yet I found it quite challenging as we progress our projects. My new year’s resolution is to keep asking these two questions to maintain our focus on our grassroot initiative. What can Ibasho do to improve the life of elders that no other groups can do? What can architecture field do to prepare for aging society that no other disciplines can do? Does anyone have suggestions??