A free Earth and Dippers, wow! |
Dear reader,
here we are again and the more busy we get the more we realize how tragic the situation is in Northern Japan. This last weekend we went up to Fukushima, Iwaki City and we did a Food and Fun Festival with around 300 people who are all living in shelters. Now these shelters are not much to brag over, in fact they are just shipping containers with one window on one side and a door on the other. This is cold and tells the people that they are not worth being considered humans, more like a thing, a product they dont know what to do with.
However, our mission accomplished one thing, we got them to SMILE! and according to our host there, Mr Sawaii san who is the Principle of a high school, he had not seen them smile for a very long time. So we left Tokyo early on Saturday morning and we got to Iwaki City and it was raining. The festival was supposed to be outside but it was windy and rainy to we moved to an abandoned warehouse that had gotten destroyed by the tsunami. We were only a few meters from the ocean in this place as you can see from the photos.
Eiko unloading the GPOP truck with Jamie from Helping Hands For Japan. |
This mission was a united mission between Golden Pyramid of Peace (GPOP) and Rescue Japan under the leadership of Dwayne Wayne and Midori Inoue San who were amazing. We also got some help from smaller NPO`s that assisted us and we were grateful for those helping hands. One such was Jamie El-Banna from Helping Hands For Japan, a UK based NPO and Michael Connolly from Foreign Volunteers Japan and a few others. Out GPOP team was headed by Miyuki Sugihara san who did an amazing job in coordinating the efforts we needed to get done.
Dwayne Wayne the DJ man, getting ready to play some music. |
Naoko Okazaki from GPOP and Midori Inoue from Rescue Japan. |
We set up early that morning when we got there and then started handing out food and we did childrens activities and then we handed out clothing and other supplies that they might need such as dippers and sterilizers. At the end of the festival we did a lottery with some items that we had specially gathered for this, such as 2 Ipods. This was handed out to the winners of Scissors, Rock and Paper game and this got everyone very excited. We had success as our goal was to make these people feel that someone cares and that there is hope.
Our next event is on December 24th, Christmas and we are doing it then for over 1000 people. Everyone gets a gift from Santa and we have a BIG Christmas tree. We are also going to do a lottery for a permanent Dome Home that I am giving to someone in Fukushima. This is a 200 square meter house with everything ready to go. It is earthquake and hurricane proof. We have a lot of media for this event and some celebrities have said that they are coming. These people are suffering, they lost everything and have been put into these gray boxes to survive until someone rescues them from their misery. We will do what we can for them and much as we can to help them re-gain hope and take action towards a brighter future.
Please continue your support, it has meant a lot for us and this Christmas, please give so we can help them more. These people need us now!
In Service,
Gudni Gudnason and the GPOP Team.
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