May 2010

Volunteers Distribute Blankets in Mozambique

A team of 23 Japanese volunteers distributed blankets in Mozambique from April 24 to May 4. The team, led by Rev. Yoshitaka Baba, minister of Rissho Kosei-kai's Tsuruoka Dharma Center, consisted of members of Rissho Kosei-kai and the Japan Team of Young Human Power, a Japanese nongovernmental organization (NGO). Both are member organizations of Japan Blankets For Africa Campaign (JBAC, formerly called the Campaign for Sharing Blankets with People in Africa).

Distribution was facilitated and supported by two local NGOs: Kulima and the Association Crista para o Desenvolvimento Comunitario. The volunteers distributed 16,800 blankets in collaboration with these NGOs, of which they handed out 1,126 to people in 11 districts in Inhambane and Maputo Provinces. The recipients were mainly orphans, the elderly, and AIDS victims.

The volunteers also met people who had received blankets in past years. In the nation's capital, Maputo, the volunteers paid a courtesy call on Mr. Susumu Segawa, Japan's ambassador to Mozambique, at his official residence.

Since 1984, the annual campaigns have collected blankets from the public throughout Japan for victims of natural disaster and civil war in Africa.

This year Rissho Kosei-kai's annual peace program supporting the campaign started April 1. Rissho Kosei-kai has also supported the campaign, since it began, with activities centered on Youth Day, the third Sunday in May. This year members at all Dharma Centers across the country took the opportunity of the national weeklong holiday called Golden Week, from April 29 to May 5, to further promote the campaign. They reached out to local people through door-to-door visits and by distributing fliers on streets and at shopping malls.

On April 25 the Fuchu Dharma Center in Tokyo collected 110 blankets from local residents at two places in the center's dissemination area. On May 1-2 members of the Nakatsu Dharma Center on the Japanese island of Kyushu appealed to residents and tourists at a local festival to donate blankets and money for shipping them.

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