Climbers and mountain equipment makers from across Japan are sending in boots, sleeping bags and other equipment to get high school students in areas devastated by the March 11th earthquake and tsunami out into the mountains.
Climbers and mountain equipment makers from across Japan are sending in boots, sleeping bags and other equipment to get high school students in areas devastated by the March 11th earthquake and tsunami out into the mountains.
At the heart of the effort is Yama-Kei Publishers Co., a well-known publisher of books and magazines on climbing and the outdoors, which established a fund in 2010 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of its founding.
The fund was initially focused on cleaning up mountain areas by funding an effort to bring down trash from mountain huts in the Northern Japan Alps and other areas, but it is now coordinating help for school mountain climbing clubs in the disaster area.
Its organizers were contacted by Kazuteru Teshima, a high school teacher in disaster-hit Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, in May. Teshima, 47, who runs his school’s mountain climbing club, told fund officials that he did not have enough equipment, including tents and sleeping bags, for his members.
“I’d like (to urge) the fund to support us in buying this equipment on behalf of alumni and parents who have suffered huge losses in the quake,” he said.
In previous years, he said, the club got a maximum of five new members, but 11 freshmen joined in the aftermath of the quake. Teshima reasoned that the students may have felt that outdoor survival skills were more important after their experience in the Great East Japan Earthquake or that some of them may have emotional reasons for wanting to face Mother Nature head on.
The fund responded by calling on supporters to provide mountain-climbing equipment, and obtained numerous backpacks, sleeping bags, mountain-climbing boots, and other items from manufacturers and individual climbers.
The club also received financial backing for a summer camp held at Mount Yatsugadake in August. Members were able to interact with mountain club members from Yokkaichi High School in Mie Prefecture and share their experiences in the disaster.
“The summer training gave me the courage to overcome my problems," one freshman said. "I definitely want to help rebuild Ishinomaki.”
The fund also provided equipment to a club in Tagajo High School in Miyagi Prefecture last year.
“We hope to support more high schools in the Tohoku region,” said Kenji Kubota, the fund's secretary-general.