Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Meeting Old and New Friends in California

During Hawaii's autumn break (10 days), we went to California to visit friends there. I am grateful we have such wide range of friends around the world.  Friends make life more meaningful and wonderful.

I met Diane (center of the photo) who lives near Oakland. She used live in Kamogawa and she is the reason Gen (my husband) moved to Kamogawa, and as a result, I also lived there for 14 years.  

A lot of good memories in Kamogawa growing rice, vegetables, mushrooms, fruits and children organically in the 200-year-old farm house!  But now we are not going back until our kids are grown due to what is going on at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plants.

Diane used to host children from Chernobyl in Kamogawa and now Fukushima children in California.  Such a caring humanitarian.  I am now joining her effort by launching Fukushima Kids Hawaii Project in the Big Island of Hawaii.  We now have Fukushima Kids Hawaii House(right now as I write this, we are hosting a mother and two young children, 2 and 5 years old who had already developed thyroid cysts) open for 3 families all year round! Apply now by e-mail if you want to stay here with your children.

Here is the interview Leuren Moret did with Gen and me in California. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEtT_ya7KB8&noredirect=1

Leuren was a geologist who used to work for Lawrence Livermore Lab (US Government Nuclear Weapon Lab) to find a safe depository for nuclear waste in the USA, which she could not find.  The Lab tried to make the falsification of her data, which made her to  became a whistle blower and anti-nuke activist to inform the public about the risk of radiation.  

She has been working for indigenous population and minorities as a scientist whose health is threatened by radiation.  She introduced us to Dr. Stern Glass which was such an eye opener for us to learn about the risk of law level radiation. 

Now, with Fukushima triple meltdown, our health is at risk and we need massive information sharing by people as media is unfortunately still supporting the nuclear industry and not disclosing what has been really happening there.  

People in Hawaii and West Coast, and also entire USA will be (already has been) affected by the radiation from Fukushima as well as the existing radiation from nuclear testing and nuclear power plants leakage in the US. No wonder why cancer and hear attacks prevails Japan and USA.

We also Met Takemi san who hosted us for the Japanese traditional medicine (Harmonics Healing) workshop at her house.  It was nice to meet a group of Japanese in San Francisco who are eager to learn the ancient and natural way of Japanese healing method.

The reunion with Kosta and Hollis was also fun.  We went star and UFO watching one night after a wonderful dinner Hollis made for all of us.  We then took an AMTRAK (US train) to Portland (Oregon) to meet with Suzy Ward, Matthew's mother.  18 hours of train ride was fun and spectacular for all of us (but it was not easy to sleep in the AMTRAK coach train.  Next time, we will buy sleeping sheets).

Meeting Suzy is always great joy for me as she speaks with her dogs as well as her son Matthew.  Very interesting just to stay around her and ask questions.  Some of the interviews can be seen at Gen Morita's blog (in Japanese).

Shinobu hosted us also, gathering Japanese mothers in/near Santa Cruz area to support high school students who want to study in California.  It can be done with low budget for 1 year if parents can come up with the money (about $6000 a year). I really hope Japanese mothers network around the world can support all the affected children in and around Fukushima!

Now we are back to Hawaii thinking about Fukushima kids and how to raise money for the winter program which is happening in two months now!!  Fukushima kids Hawaii House also needs funding to keep it open ($24000/year for the house, water, electricity and insurance).  

Everything we try to do costs money and I need to come up with a creative way of fund raising so that we can continue our mission.

Friends and connection (we say "Go-en" in Japanese) always has made it possible to realize my dream and mission before, so I am not too worried.  But every help, every support will make a difference and I would love you to consider to support Fukushima Kids Hawaii Project, which you can do so by donating online through IAM-CED.org.
IAM-CED is our funding NPO so that your donation is tax-deductible.

You can use Paypal (Credit Card) to donate:
http://iam-ced.org/Donate.html

Thank you very much for your understanding and action in support of Fukushima kids.