GET UPDATES AND FIND OUT HOW YOU CAN HELP!
On Thursday, April 14, the island of Kyushu in southwestern Japan was hit by a magnitude 6.5 earthquake followed by an M7.3 quake on Saturday—with many aftershocks in the days following.The number of deaths, injuries and people left without food and shelter continues to rise.
Regardless of your location, there are a number of ways that you can stay up-to-date on the situation, find support and help in the ongoing disaster relief effort. Urgent Information & Relief A list of local resources for information on what’s happening in the region.
- Kumamoto City homepage
- Kumamoto City International Center
- Kumamoto International group Facebook page (responds to questions in English)
- A multilingual page from the RESPECT organization at Osaka University. Situation reports and information in English, Bahasa Indonesian, Spanish, Portuguese, Thai, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Arabic, French and Japanese
- Google Person Finder
Money Donations Most services recommend sending money as it will be administered by professionals in the field who can ensure that it is used for exactly the right purpose. However, as we have listed below, there are plenty of other ways to help as well.
- Japanese Red Cross Society
- Second Harvest Japan
Room Donations Airbnb is running appeals to people who have spare apartments or individual room space to lend for free, as well as a registry for those in need of a place to stay. Support & Medical Services A list of organizations to which you can donate by giving time or your services.
- International Medical Corps
- Second Harvest
- Blood donation Call the Japan Red Cross Society at 03-3437-7081 (don’t forget to check guidelines for blood donor eligibility)
12 Comments
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Laguna
A great source for info from people on the ground is the Facebook site Kumamoto International.
https://www.facebook.com/Kumamotoi/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
Updoot
I give blood at every possibility, I live in Kyoto, and I'm a foreigner. Never had an issue here.
cleo
In what way? I gave blood regularly from the time I first came to Japan to the outbreak of the BSE scare. No one ever gave a toss about my nationality.
After BSE, they no longer wanted my blood, but that is due to time spent in the UK, nothing to do with nationality. Japanese who have spent time in the UK (or a number of other countries plagued by BSE, or plagued by diseases carried in the blood - malaria, Chagas disease, etc.) are equally banned. So what 'rules for foreigners' are you referring to?
nath
Then the discrimination isn't racial, it's linguistic.
gogogo
@Yubaru: Good to hear, but did you see the list of who can't donate?
gogogo
The rules for donating blood in Japan for foreigners are amazing outdated.
Yubaru
Hardly,, I donated blood for years, and even went as far as being an on-call donor, because of the relative rarity of my blood type. I only stopped when they tried to push me into taking time off from my job to come in and donate.
Unless YOU have a problem, they will take anyone's blood.
arcadius
Thank you Japan Today for this article. Thoughts, prayers, folded paper cranes etc. are nice but will not materially help the people of Kumamoto (paper cranes and messages of support may give them some psychological comfort but are not the priority at the moment).
gogogo
Blood has no language or race why not provide the list of requirements in English and take the blood?
Updoot
@Yubaru I couldn't speak or read Japanese when I first gave blood in Japan, but even so, they didn't turn me away, they used the most broken and horrible English they could just to keep me in the door. So I'm kinda surprised that the website states that.
Yubaru
The following is a quote taken from the Japanese Red Cross site regarding blood donations. Here is the link: (In English)
http://www.jrc.or.jp/english/activity/blood/
However, and I know from experience, if you have someone with you that can accurately translate your native/spoken language to Japanese, they WILL accept the blood donation.
Oh and I apologize I have not seen any list.
Yubaru
I wouldnt call it discrimination, more like prudence.