Together We Stand

[ 76 ] their personal belongings. These evacuees first stayed in tempo- rary shelters such as school gyms or hotels, before moving to temporarily constructed housing units or subsidized apartments. Acknowledging the fact that Fukushima evacuees were in great need of daily necessities to rebuild their lives in temporary housing, AAR, in partnership with ADRA Japan, distributed emergency relief goods to evacuees in and outside of Fukushima. Between June 2011 and March 2012, AAR delivered these supplies to 22,599 households originally from 11 municipal districts, 3,304 of which were living away from the prefecture. The overall project budget was more than 840 million Japanese Yen (approximately US$7 million). Implementing the relief goods distribution, AAR collabo- rated with 11 local municipal offices to find the precise figures and addresses of beneficiaries. The organization also estab- lished a partnership with a chamber of commerce in each municipal district in Fukushima to procure the relief goods requested. Minami-Soma city is located at the northern end of the legal evacuation zone. The southern part of the city lies within the mandated evacuation zone at risk of heavy radiation contamination. Some evacuees moved to tempo- rary housing units that were constructed in the northern part of the same city outside the 20-kilometre radius around the crippled nuclear power plant or in other municipal districts within Fukushima prefecture, while others fled to other prefectures including Yamagata, Niigata, Gunma, Saitama and Tokyo. Most municipal offices were requesting relief goods assistance for evacuees who had moved into temporary housing units located in designated areas within Fukushima. The Minami-Soma city government, however, agreed to AAR’s idea of providing relief goods not only for those who resettled within Fukushima but also for those who had started or were going to start their lives outside the prefecture. The social welfare section of the Minami-Soma city office notified all evacuees in and outside of Fukushima who had registered their new address with an acceptance of receiving relief goods assistance from NGOs including AAR. The letter also asked those needing assistance to agree that the city could disclose their personal information, including mobile phone number and current address, to NGOs. Thanks to the coop- eration of Minami-Soma city, AAR was legally able to access evacuees’ personal information. AAR sent out reply-paid post- cards to the evacuees to ask if they needed assistance with life necessities. Returned postcards were forwarded to a private data management firm under a logistics company to prepare paid invoices for promptly shipping the goods. As for the relief goods, AAR carefully selected 19 distribu- tion items through discussions with the Minami-Soma city office, which had collected needs from the evacuees who were about to start their lives in temporary housing units. All of the relief items were procured from the Haramachi Commerce and Industry Association, a local chamber of commerce in Minami- Soma city that had been functioning since a couple of months after the disaster. After AAR placed the orders, the Haramachi Commerce and Industry Association prepared packages of the relief goods. The logistics company delivered the packages to Image: AAR AAR staff in conversation with a beneficiary in temporary housing in Yabuki town, Fukushima T ogether W e S tand