Posredujemo iniciativo gospoda Shujija Kogija, direktorja EU – Japan Festa.
From Kogi: Help Japan with Photographs
“Ganbare Tohoku!!”
(The message urges Tohoku “to hang in there, to hold tough”.)
Dear friends,
It’s now going on three weeks since the great earthquake. Our dead number more than 11,000, and another 16,000 remain unaccounted for. Evacuation shelters are temporary home to 200,000. The Tohoku region that is bearing the brunt of this round of devastation is home to a great many EU-Japan Fest colleagues, but fortunately most have been confirmed safe and sound.
In the immediate aftermath of the quake we worked with our colleagues in the Tohoku area to provide daily shipments of materials, food, medicine, clothing and other urgent necessities. Shipments from Tokyo were relayed by these colleagues and reached disaster victims in need within 24 hours. Many, many friends in Europe responded immediately to the earthquake with kind words of sympathy and encouragement by email and telephone. Our gratitude for their thoughts for us knows no bounds.
Japan is in distress, but we are confronting this grim reality with level-headed mutual assistance and have started on the road to recovery.
And so there is a request I would like to make of our friends in Europe. My request is that you email me photographs of yourselves holding a sign reading “Ganbare Tohoku!!!” (The message urges Tohoku “to hang in there, to hold tough”.) The plan is to pass these photographs on to our colleagues fighting the good fight on the ground and to victims of the earthquake and tsunami. What they need most of all just now is courage, determination, grit. I am confident that the photographs you send will go a long way to sparking this courage in all of us throughout Japan.
Attached is an example of the sort of photograph I would like you to send. (Pictured is my mother, aged 97, who also experienced the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 that claimed 140,000 lives in and around Tokyo. She met the latest disaster with composure.) The other is of myself and my son Jiro on March 15. He’s the one who gives me courage.
Shuji Kogi
Please send to: 
*Special notice:
1. Please send your e-mail to above address with your photograph one by one.
2. Please also write your name (please explain what you are), city, and country.
3. If neccesary, please enlarge the attached pdf file of sign reading “Ganbare Tohoku!!!”.
4. We sincerely hope you can also ask your friends, colleague, as many as possible.
Many thanks!
