Relief Activities of Religious Organizations

Hiroyuki Kurosaki(Kokugakuin University)hkuro@kokugakuin.ac.jp

Religious People Academic Scholars

Collaboration in Disaster Relief

A Result:宗教者災害救援マップ(A Map of Disaster Relief by Religious People)http://sites.google.com/site/fbnerjmap/

“Social Contribution by Religion” Research Project

• A project in the Japanese Association for the Study of Religion and Society （「宗教と社会」学会） between 2006 and 2011.

• Caretakers: Keishin INABA (Osaka Univ.), Eiichi OTANI (Bukkyo Univ.), Yorio FUJIMOTO (Kokugakuin Univ.), Yoshihide SAKURAI (Hokkaido Univ.) and Hiroyuki KUROSAKI (Kokugakuin Univ.)

Sharing information on disaster relief by religion

• Initially proposed by Keishin INABA (Osaka Univ.)

• Opening a page, entitled 宗教者災害救援ネットワーク (Religious Peoples’ Disaster Relief Network), on Facebookhttp://www.facebook.com/FBNERJ

Announcements by Emergency Operations Center of each religious

organization

Blogs

Tweets

Facebook posts

• Prayer and grief support• Shelters• Donation• Support materials• Emergency rice feeding• Mental care• Other relief activities

宗教者災害救援ネットワークhttp://www.facebook.com/FBNERJ

Religious facilities functioned as relief bases as well as shelters

e.g. Ōsaki Hachimangū, a Shinto shrine located in Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture

Religious facilities functioned as relief bases as well as shelters

e.g. Ishinomaki Eikō Church, a christian church located in Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture

Next Idea

• Providing information on religious facilities as relief bases

• Promoting collaboration between religious people and other volunteers

Two Difficulties

• Technical matter: how to construct a web map• Ask for collaboration with religious

organizations, concerning about:– Keeping up-to-date information– Security– Privacy

Another Need and Activity

• Evacuation from the Fukushima nuclear accident

• Some religious organizations announced the acceptance to their facilities of evacuation.

• Mamiko OKADA (Univ. of Hyogo) proposed the inter-religious network to share the information. → 宗教者災害支援連絡会

Collaboration

• Construction of the map system: Sotetsu TAKEI (Shingon-shu Chizan Sect), Takeo NAKATANI (Konkokyo)

• Input: students and graduate students of Osaka Univ., Tokyo Univ., Kogakkan Univ. and Kokugakuin Univ.

• Offering the data: many religious organizations, shrines, temples, churches and other particular facilities

Google Documents (Spreadsheet) Google Fusion Tables

Google Sites

Import

Export Link (CSV)

Query, Map

Current StatusStatus Number of FacilitiesDamaged 1781Relief Base 138Safe 340Accepting Evacuation 70Unconfirmed 120Total 2449

Result

• Visualization of the relief activities by religious organizations after the Great East Japan Earthquake

• The map itself was of little use to the promotion of the support cooperation of goods and refugee acceptance; the real trust and network in the ordinary life in the local community is more important.

Next Step

• Keishin INABA plans to construct a disaster prevention map which can be used in the ordinary life to promote the network in the local community. It will include the locations of religious facilities.

Thank you.