JCIE’s Japan NGO Earthquake Relief and Recovery Fund has provided a grant to SakuraNet, a Japanese NPO, to rebuild and operate a senior daycare center, which will double as a community center, in an isolated area outside of Miyako City, Iwate Prefecture. This grant, which is part of the fund’s focus on long-term recovery and particularly on supporting senior citizens—a large and vulnerable portion of those affected by last year’s disaster—was made possible by MetLife Foundation and other donors to the JCIE fund. The Miyako Daycare project has brought together the nonprofit sector, the local social welfare council, and architecture students and professors from Ritsumeikan University to rebuild a center that serves senior citizens and other residents in the small rural community of Omoe, a fishing community that was hard-hit by the tsunami. At this point, government funds are being used to rebuild senior centers in more urbanized areas, not smaller centers in less populated places. However, Omoe is an hour drive from the Miyako City center, which would be too far for senior citizens to commute each day, so this center will play an important role in meeting the local community’s needs. For more information…