The seminar was held at Ueno Holiness Church on October 8th, pastors were invited from Arakawa, Sumida, Taito, Koto and Chuo wards of Tokyo. The seminar was sponsored by the DRCnet Tokyo Disaster Preparedness Project and co-sponsored by CRASH JAPAN. 40 people attended the seminar. In the morning, there were three sessions. First, Kazu Kurihara from CRASH showed a PowerPoint presentation concerning the predicted risk of the coming earthquake disaster and how to reduce the risk, as we need to pay special attention to eastern Tokyo, which is subject to flooding. Second, Pastor Matsumoto, chairman of the Japan Evangelical Association disaster relief committee, spoke on the need of church network to cope with disaster. He emphasized the importance of a leader who can take an initiative to start face-to-face community within walking distance. In the final morning session, Jonathan Wilson, director of CRASH spoke on how to help the vulnerable. A highlight of this seminar was the introduction of a Salvation Army canteen car, which has a rice cooker system that can make 100 servings in 20 min. We were able to eat GYUDON (Beef Bowl) for lunch prepared by this canteen car. After lunch participants divided into small groups and discussed how to start church networks. The purpose of these networks is to create a face-to-face disaster reduction community. Through this seminar in Taito ward, seven churches have been networked and are ready to go.
Tokyo Disaster Preparedness: Kazu Kurihara