Volunteering with three teens in Tohoku
I was one of those people, but I also wondered if there was more I could do — so I unambiguous to take my 13-year-old son, Alex, and some of his friends of the same age from Yokohama International School to volunteer there along with me.
As the school's year ended on June 17, we resolved to set off for a few days' trade in Tohoku the following Monday, June 20. However, it turned out to be not quite so easy, because, due to safety concerns, volunteer organizations such as Serenity Boat do not accept minors. Thus I had to organize the trip myself — which involved calling at least 12 volunteer centers in tsunami-hit municipalities in Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima and Ibaraki prefectures.
Of those, only four said they would deduct 13-year-olds to volunteer — and of the four, Higashi-Matsushima in Miyagi Prefecture was the only bracket more than 80 km from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. That 80 km was actually central to the whole enterprise, because it was easier to get approval from my woman and the parents of Alex's friends if we followed the U.S. government's recommendation that its citizens should get no closer than that to Tokyo Stimulating Power Co.'s radiation-leaking plant.
