Recover and prevention
We found that working adults who were tired of their jobs, and students who had taken a leave of absence or failed to advance in their studies, recovered from their fatigue and decided on a career path as they interacted with the hikikomori peer staff over the counter at the café.
When one of the first users in his early 20s who joined the café in 2013 left in 2015, he wrote: Furatto was like a "stopover" for me, a place where I could rest when I was tired, a place where I could get my strength back, and a place where I could prevent withdrawal. When I get tired, I rest, and when I get my strength back, I flap my wings again.
Knowledge, experience, and resources are essential for one to be able to travel farther. We can overcome the obstacles of travel if we can use our experience, both good and bad, to our advantage.
Fitting all needs into one
When we look at what happened in Furatto, we find that many people are seeking for an ibasho, a place to belong. There are people who are not very talkative, people who are talkative, young people, old people, unemployed people, employed people.... I feel like they are searching somewhere to belong, but they just don't tell others. One volunteer said, “I came here to offer my support, but it was I who was saved." In order to meet this need, starting in 2019, we will have an adult day on Mondays, so that we can have one more day of opportunities for social contact with the withdrawn people, and people who have not yet become withdrawn (especially retirees) can also come.11:00-1:00, 1:00-5:00, and 5:00-7:00, with three levels of hours, We have tried to create a system that can receive people with various needs.
Re-examining the idea of ibasho
What an ibasho? What kind of place is a comfortable place to belong? What are the thoughts of the visitors, the thoughts of the staff, the mission and vision of the place, and what is its role as a place to be? I have been repeatedly examining these ideas for a while.
A more proactive approach - Porotto
Porotto is an effort to break the chain that leads to truancy and withdrawal through comprehensive support. The series of workshops were intended to inform people about hikikomori, the thoughts of the withdrawers, their families, supporters, and administrative organizations that are working on measures to deal with the problem. In the process, we have noticed our role as a bridge between the person concerned and the supporters. The fundamental reasons why the problems of non-attendance and withdrawal are often hard to resolve are not only the attitude of the supporters, but also the fact that the support is stove-piped to various problems, and therefore they can only respond with manual support.
Setting up Akita Hikikomori Lab
People are calling for the prefecture-wide expansion of places like Furatto, so let's all work together to create an ibasho, a place to belong! We cannot solve all problems with just one ibasho. I believe that we need to work together to address the problems that are not solved by Furatto. I want to brainstorm on how we want to help those who are truant and withdrawn, and how do we prevent truancy and withdrawal? It’s time for all of us to join hands and think, what can Akita do, and what should we, the Akita citizens do to make sure that they are not creating an environment in which their children would become truants and hikikomori?
The set up of the Akita Hikikomori Lab seeks to work together with all people living in Akita to find ways to break the cycle of becoming truant or socially withdrawn. The first mission of the Lab is to find out the prevalence of hikikomori in Akita. To what extent is the population affected by truancy and withdrawal? What are the current support we have for truants and hikikomori? Are these support measures working? If not why? Who is at greater risk in becoming a truant or hikikomori? Can we prevent our children from becoming truants and hikikomori? How? To do this, we will need to have a combined effort with all the players. The person concerned, the parents, families, schools, workplace, city office, academicians, healthcare centers, clinics, wards, firefighters, police, force, and policy makers.
_%E3%83%9A%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B8_1.jpg)
