BLOOM BACK BETTERの実践者
今井 頼子（いまい よりこ）
Practitioner of BLOOM BACK BETTER
Yoriko IMAI
生まれも育ちも丹波市市島町。
高校卒業後、大阪市で働くために丹波市を出るが、〇年にUターン。
夫とUターン後に開店した喫茶店「ひなたぼっこカフェ」を経営するかたわら、地域の仲間と共に地域を元気にすべく「ぽんぽ好（ぽんぽこ）」のリーダーを務める。
Born and raised in Ichijima-cho, Tamba City.
After graduating from high school, she moved to Osaka to work, and returned to Ichijima-cho in XXX.
While she and her husband started a cafe called "Hinatabokko Cafe" after their return, she is also the leader "Ponpoko", a local group which tries to revitalize their community.
Ms. Imai was a "U-turn" maker who once left her home in Tamba City to get a job in the city then came back to Ichijima-cho after retirement. Formerly being a nursery teacher, Ms. Imai has been an active resident in the community especially after the torrential rain disaster in August 2014. What made her transform the experience of being affected by the disaster into positive initiatives to revitalize her own home town?
What made you a "U-turn" maker in Ichijima-cho, Tamba City?
I was born and raised in Ichijima-cho until I was 18 years old. After graduating from high school, I found a job in Osaka City - one of the biggest urban cities in Japan. Up till 53 years old, I had lived in Sakai City. However, as our parents were getting older in my home town, I decided to take my husband to Tamba City.
It has always been a dream of mine to live in a countryside, so the decision did not make me hesitant at all. Being back in Ichijima-cho, we got a part of my parents' land and my husband, a carpenter himself, built a log house on it after a year and 2 months.
My husband and I live in the log house now. Another year and five months after the house was completed, we opened a cafe on the ground floor where we provide freshly roasted coffee.
Study tour participants and Mr. & Ms. Imai
in front of the log house built by Mr. Imai
Please tell us about the disaster in August 2014.
It was about 3 years after we opened a cafe when the torrential rain hit our community. Intensive local rain fell in Ichijima-cho and other parts, which made brown water run here and there, regardless of whether on the roads or paddy fields. We could see huge trees rolling from the mountains. Luckily our house did not get flooded. Yet, the water supply system got damaged and we did not have access to clean water.
Their house was safe from the flood but they were having trouble with no access to water. Despite such a difficult situation, Ms. and Mr. Imai started food distribution for their neighboring residents.
What made you do so?
We have lots of coffee beans, because we are a cafe. At first, we thought of providing free coffee to the volunteers who were visiting our community for restoration work. Then, a friend of mine who had married into a Buddhist temple told us that a group of monks and a nonprofit organization from Nagoya visited them.
They were looking for a good place to distribute food to the affected: we were also thinking of giving out coffee, so why not share our place as a food distribution station? That is how we came to start providing food for our neighbors.
If food is distributed at temples, only their Buddhist followers will get the access. If at a community hall, only the registered members of the community will. We were wishing otherwise: our motto was to make a place that accommodates anyone in need of meals, no matter what religion or group they belong to. Thus, we combined giving out free meals and coffee together.
How were the food distribution done?
Whatever we needed for cooking, including water, gas, tools and cooks, were provided by the monks and the organization. All they needed was a place. We made our garage and parking area open to visitors. The visitors had meals at the garage or parking area, and after the meal we invited them inside the log house to have coffee and some snacks. Snacks were also brought in by the volunteers.
You might imagine regular food distribution as a process of waiting in a queue and taking away the food. But ours was a restaurant-style where our guests took their seats under the tent first and get their meals served. There were tables and chairs and the guests could relax and enjoy eating. Coffee was served after the meal, so as a result, our food distribution was something pretty unique.
What were other characteristics to serve the community?
Emergency supplies for the affected was mainly distributed at the public community center. The center is a bit far from our neighbor and we noticed that the elderly found it hard to go there to get the necessities. So we thought we could get the supplies for the sake of them, store the goods at our place, and give to them. Later on, a university professor visited Ichijima-cho to observe the situation and saw what we were doing, then she encouraged the city government to make our house a new hub for distribution of supplies.
At first, the city's public announcement about ongoing food distribution was only about the ones at community centers. But they added our activity too later on.
So your activity to closely serve the neighborhood was recognized by the city government. How long did the food distribution last?
We conducted twice a week, 9 times in total. Therefore the duration was about a month.
I head that your activities evolved after the food distribution.
What kind of initiatives did you take?
Our food distribution itself ended at the end of September - after a month since the disaster. In coming November, the members of the activity gathered to hold an event, to reward ourselves for what we had done in a way. The name of the event was "Uki-uki Umai Aki (direct translation: Happy-excited Tasty Fall)" with a theme "Shall we take a break now?". Really, we had kept running throughout the days since the occurrence of the disaster. We wanted to tell ourselves: "Well, we have worked so hard for three months or so. Let us take a break?"
That very event came to continue regularly every fall. We are holding the fifth event this fall (October 2018)! We are aiming at the tenth now.
After a few months, the city government organized an event where we, as a group of women, were given a chance to learn from the disaster recovery from Niigata-chuetsu earthquake. They are also a rural mountainous area just like Tamba is. Guest speakers visited Tamba, and delegates from Tamba visited former Yamakoshi village. We were able to learn from pioneers of disaster recovery.
With the learning we received, we organized a round-table discussion with our neighbors. It was a place where everybody discussed their dreams. A total of 22 people respectively shared what was on their mind.
Having experienced food distribution activities evolved to a discussion of how to vitalize your local community?
Among the 22 members who participated in the discussion, seven members shared the same goal and formed the "Tamba City Women's Project Team for Disaster Recovery". We all shared the same idea of how significant the act of "eating" is, and made up our mind to vitalize our community through food! We asked for help from experts in community development. As they helped us conceptualize the foundation and contents of activities, our name as "POMPOKO*", uniform and monthly lunch event, were developed as concrete plans. Our kitchen is the same as when we had the food serving activities: the garage of my place with a bit of reform.
At first, our activities were about disaster recovery, as with the name "Women's Project Team for Disaster Recovery". However, we grew to think that we don't want to be narrow-minded only with recovery. Therefore we chose to change our name. We are a women's group. Meanwhile, our fellow men formed a group called "Kon-chan Farm" who harvest vegetables. The veggies from the Farm will be cooked by POMPOKO. We are trying every day to use veggies and rice with least use of chemical fertilizer, and to serve to as many people as possible.
*The name POMPOKO derives from the Japanese onomatopoeia representing the sound raccoon dogs make. Mt. Godai in Tamba City has provided valuable spring water to the residents called "Tanuki-ana no mizu" or "water from the raccoon dog hole". However, the torrential rain disaster in August 2014 triggered slope failures and debris flows which stopped the spring. Reminiscing the water, and wishing to vitalize the community just like the water did, the group was named after it. The Chinese character "KO" means liking: liking people, liking the homeland, and liking food.
What is the goal of POMPOKO?
At the core of our activities, "spending every day with joy" is our goal. We just hope that will eventually vitalize our homeland. Our activities' purpose is "human capacity building": in other words, we want to raise children who love the rural life. We go to a neighboring elementary school to introduce our activity and think about new lunch box menus. University students also visit us to experience cooking and harvesting veggies.
We are hoping to build a new log house and make it our base of further activities. What we can offer there? Food processing using locally produced ingredients, accommodation for visitors, providing nature/environment education and passing down how important our mother nature is... Each of us can provide available land, and be even more active. We just hope many people will be involved in the realization of our dream!
Please give a message to potential visitors to Tamba City.
We, residents of Tamba City, think this is a very good place. But it seems visitors are even more impressed with Tamba! You may find great parts of our homeland that we are not aware of. We welcome you to find out, just like treasure-hunting. We can have fun together.
