Action Plan under Recovery Assistance Project

Empower disaster-affected communities through job creation

1.

Daycare Center Project: Childcare support for working mothers
Target areas: Kesennuma and Ishinomaki, Miyagi, city of Yamagata
Objective: Help families with children by rebuilding and helping to run daycare centers in places that were affected by the disaster

2.

Community-based NPO Development Project
Target areas: Kesennuma, Ishinomaki
Objective: Works with selected groups of people who are working on community issues and creating jobs in the affected areas. Supports these groups in their efforts to achieve NPO status within a year by offering guidance on fundraising, accounting and labor management. Helps these groups to stabilize their operations by providing start-up capital and funds to pay for staff who handle accounting functions. The accounting departments of NPOs are often short-staffed.

3.

Matching employers with employees
IVY hosts job fairs to bring local employers and job-seekers together.

Progress of Activities under Recovery Assistance Project (As of December 31, 2012)

1.

Daycare Center Project
IVY is currently helping three daycare centers recover or rebuild from the disaster.
The daycare centers are the Tsubomi Daycare Center and Kids' Room Ohisama in the city of Kesennuma, as well as the IVY Daycare Center in the city of Yamagata. The IVY Daycare Center is exclusively designed for children who had to leave their homes in the wake of the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
IVY's support staff in the Sanriku area regularly visit Tsubomi and Ohisama every week to provide guidance on accounting, labor management, incorporation and the creation of one-year operating plans. And the daycare centers finally have all the resources they need to run efficiently.
IVY also provided computers and software for accounting, as well as funds to pay salaries and cover insurance costs for nine teachers.
IVY is running the IVY Daycare Center since it opened on September 18, 2012. A total of 99 children are receiving care at the three locations (Tsubomi: 17, Ohisama: 51, IVY: 31).

2.

NPO Development Project
IVY's support staff in the Sanriku area have regularly visited two community organizations, Tree Seed in Kesennuma and Ichigo-ichie in Ishinomaki, to help them achieve NPO status. IVY has provided guidance on accounting, labor management and the creation of one-year operating plans. It also provides other forms of support, such as helping with the initial stages of investments.
Tree Seed has been legally recognized as an NPO and care center. Ichigo-ichie, meanwhile, continued to run as a three-person enterprise after IVY's support expired. Ichigo-ichie mainly handles carpentry-related work.
IVY has focused on the daycare center and NPO development projects over the past 10 months. As a result, the job fair project described above is still currently in the research stage.

Reports

Tsubomi Daycare Center, Principal Hachiko Hatakeyama
The daycare center is open due to the result of hard work of five volunteer teachers from Shinsei Daycare Center, which was closed due to damage from the tsunami (Shinsei employed 15 people at the time of the disaster). These volunteers, responding to the requests of parents, built Tsubomi Daycare Center in an apartment in Tanakamae, Kesennuma. It began services in September 2012.
For the six months from April 2012, IVY provided aid by paying approximately 63% of the salaries for six teachers, including one who was newly licensed.
In the beginning, subsidiary aid we expected to receive for operating funds from the city of Kesennuma was late due to a delayed vote by the city council. We would not have enough money to pay salaries until September. Unlike the support from the city, the aid we received from UNIQLO and IVY was faithfully deposited into the daycare center's account before payday. So we were never late in paying salaries, and this was a big help. If we had not received this aid, Tsubomi would probably have closed down."

Future plans

1.

Filing income tax returns
Excluding IVY Daycare Center, five organizations must file their income tax returns during the January – March period. They are preparing to file returns with the help of accountants who started businesses after participating in IVY's business-startup seminar in 2012.

2.

Incorporating daycare centers as NPOs
IVY will help Tsubomi and Ohisama to become legally recognized as NPOs.