Human resources company Pasona Group Inc. will arrange internships for young people seeking hands-on experience in coastal Tohoku areas hit hard by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
Human resources company Pasona Group Inc. will arrange internships for young people seeking hands-on experience in coastal Tohoku areas hit hard by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
The Pasona group on April 1 established a venture subsidiary in Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture, to manage the internship program with just three workers and start-up funds of 20 million yen ($166,000). The subsidiary plans to achieve revenues of 100 million yen in three years.
“We hope to make the internship program in the disaster-stricken areas a sustainable business,” said Eriko Totsuka, a 28-year-old worker of Pasona who was appointed president of the venture.
The interns can develop problem-solving abilities by working in rural areas that are not only still recovering from the disaster but are also struggling with the aging of their residents and depopulation, the temporary staffing service group said.
The young workers are also expected to help industries in the area develop products using local ingredients and resources and find new sales channels.
The internships will last for about a month, including lecture sessions in Tokyo. The training fee will be around 300,000 yen each for a group of 20 participants, including instruction fees for local workers.
The interns will be dispatched for manual work at seafood processing, fishing and agricultural industries in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures. Local workers who survived the disaster will provide instructions and pass on memories of the disaster to the younger generations.
The interns will be required to pay for their own transportation, accommodations and meals.
The program is targeted mainly at new recruits at large corporations, schools and other educational institutions and local governments.
Since 2012, the Pasona Group has run a social project to help disaster-affected people find employment in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture.
Pasona officials said their employees have developed personal networks in the region through the project and can contribute to the success of the internship program.