The day after - Japan

How can you help if you are already in Japan?

The following website gives lot of information on how can you help and what you should or should not do if you are in Japan.

http://www.timeout.jp/en/tokyo/feature/2532/japan-earthquake-how-you-can-help

Summarizing some options:

1 - What not to do: Don’t travel away from your home area, if you want to physically help. Remain where your home is, in order prevent overcrowding the public transports/roads.

2 - One of the options for helping is to donate blood, give blood is one of the best and easiest things you can do. The necessity for blood donation/usage tends to increase drastically as victims are being rescued.

3 - If you feel like donating money, the following web-site (in Japanese) will help you to find where to transfer your donation to: http://cause-action.jp/

4 - One thing you must do: Save electrical power! Problems with some of the power plants are keeping them of operating normally!

Over usage of the currently available electrical power may lead to power outages (blackouts) in certain areas, which will lead to further difficulties in the rescuing operations and medical treatment of victims.

Use electronics and house appliances as minimum as possible, turn off lights, don’t use elevators, avoid using heated water… small things like this will help.

Earthquake - Tsunami in Japan

We all know how well Japan is prepared to handle earthquakes, that the majority of the buildings standing today were designed and built to resist the earthquakes and keep their inhabitants alive amidst and the shock.

There is also a tsunami warning system effectively working on the country.

The earthquake that have hit Japan today was the strongest one ever recorded in the country and the 6^th largest ever measured in the world. This earthquake has released thousands times more energy than the one that hit Chirstchurch in New Zealand a few weeks ago.

It is terrifying to see the pictures being broadcasted around the globe; to see the level of water rising 2, 3, 4 even 10 meters in about seconds due to the Tsunami. Cars being swept away, boats carried inland far from the coast, people stuck at their homes with water surrounding them, debris on fire, farmlands being inundated…

Many nuclear power plants have been shutdown and despite the fact that no radioactivity material leakage has happened from the facilities, the fear of an accident is still on the air.

Oil refineries, in particular one nearby Tokyo has been severely affected by the quake and is under “hard to control” fire. Industries on the surrounding area may be affected and may have their production strongly disrupted on the near future.

Now that this impressive earthquake is a part of the history of Japan and the world, many people are still struggling to go back home or wondering if their homes are still standing and, if they are standing, are they habitable?

Death toll and the number of people reported missing is still increasing. And the history may still unfold in several bad ways to many people in Japan.

This enormous tremor has already changed many people’s life forever.

So if you are wondering how you can help Japan to recover, the Red Cross in Japan may be a good starting point.

http://www.jrc.or.jp/english/about/glance.html

Digital inclusion

Can you imagine a world without internet? Would you be able to do your daily activities without a computer?
Amongst a number of other purposes, computers help millions to perform more, to deliver more and make our world advance quicker.
So, nowadays, how can someone live a complete life without having access to the e-world? Do you think that the young people that have never touched a computer (digital excluded) will have the same opportunities as others who have?
On the end of the day, this missing knowledge will end up affecting you somehow. If not you, maybe your children or grandchildren.
Access to computer and internet means access to information.
For example, access for farmers to learn how to plant better and make their crops grow larger, which later will mean that more people will be able to eat better and cheaper; access for people who live near forests potentially will be translated into better environmental protection; access. For populations under repression might mean a way to speak out louder and reach for help, or to change their ways of living (see e example in Tunisia and Egypt);
Access to computers and internet means power to the people to evolve and make a better world.
So, if you would like to make the world in which you live a little bit better, you could start thinking about helping organisations that are focused on digital inclusion. Maybe volunteering to work in those organisations, donating equipment, money or just making more people know that such a world of digital excluded people exists.