Volunteering to Me

To me, volunteering means donating my time and effort on my own accord to help anyone in any way, whether directly or indirectly. Although I really do want to volunteer (especially during this time of crisis in Japan), I have to admit that my previous experiences in volunteering often deter me from doing so more. Back in middle and high school there were two groups called the Junior Honor Society and the National Honor Society – even though I didn’t know most of the people in the groups and I didn’t want to be forced to do 50 hours of community service each year, given that these organizations are somewhat prestigious and look great on a college application, my mom forced me to join. Each week I would go to the meetings and sign up for various volunteering events, but due to my nervousness and the overbearing personalities of some of the members, I would often get forgotten about, and end up standing around doing nothing. Also, in order to make sure I got my 50 hours in and wouldn’t be kicked out, I would often look for menial jobs (i.e. typing for people, babysitting) that most likely don’t even count as volunteering, and I would sometimes exaggerate my time spent “volunteering” on paper to avoid the wrath of the group (and my mom). Out of all the hours I spent “volunteering”, I wonder how big of a difference I actually made, or how much time of my life and other’s lives I wasted.

Despite all this, once I entered college, I decided to participate in my school’s volunteer organization in hopes that I would have a better experience. Each year HAVOC (Hamilton Association for Volunteering, Outreach and Charity) hosts two major volunteering events, where hundreds of students are shipped out on buses to various locations to perform all different kinds of work. In contrast to middle and high school, these events were actually fun since I was able to participate with my close friends or other interesting people, but oftentimes I still felt unneeded and that I wasn’t actually making a difference. I appreciate HAVOC’s effort in organizing all these people and events, but given that the number of volunteers typically exceeded the actual demand for help in our community, I don’t believe that our time was used wisely. I hate feeling in the way and as if the leaders of the soup kitchens, YMCAs, etc. are running around trying to find work to entertain us with, and I hated sitting around waiting an hour or two for the bus to come pick us up again. I still plan on going to these events since they’re fun and a great way to get off campus and explore, but whether or not I’ll actually feel good about myself and what I’ve done afterward, I can’t say.

I feel pretty terrible for not volunteering often, but I’m tired of participating in half-assed events and then trying to convince myself that I’m helping people in order to make myself feel that I’m a better person. If I’m going to volunteer, I want to make a noticeable difference in at least one person’s life, even if the impact I have is somewhat small. Although I am not able to go and volunteer up north directly (my mom would probably go insane with worry – I’ve already caused her enough grief by coming here), I really want to participate in some sort of event to help indirectly. For once I want to volunteer in something I believe in (not something that I’m forced into), and I actually want to use every moment of my time in that situation to help. To me, that’s real volunteering, and I really hope I can have a “real” volunteer experience while I’m here in Japan. 

Response to Editorial

With all the talk that has and will be going on in the classroom about volunteering, I thought it was only appropriate to respond to this article, entitled “How you can help Japan, and why you should”:

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/03/28/op-ed-how-you-can-help-japan-and-why-you-should/

This article basically covers which sort of relief organizations are out there working to help the affected area, what they do, and which organizations would make the best use of our donations. Immediately following the disaster, I donated some of my money to the American Red Cross, only to be yelled at by my mom. As the head of a non-profit organization, she is appalled at how much money the directors of the Red Cross get paid each year, and has sort of been against them despite what they do. Looking back on it now, I realize I should have done more research on the various organizations and what they do rather than donating to the most obvious/available choice. I agree with this article that local organizations “on the scene” have a better understanding of situation, and therefore would most likely put the donation money to better use than other organizations. It’s fantastic that so many people had it in their hearts to donate, but I wonder how much of our money is used effectively given that large groups such as the Red Cross have to deal with overhead charges and must pay fuel costs when sending over people and supplies. It also never occurred to me that these smaller local organizations will be on the scene long after the Red Cross and other groups are gone, and so it is important to fund these groups to ensure that the relief effort can continue and be effective as long as necessary.  As the article states: “By knowing as much as you can about the organizations to which you donate, you can ensure that your money will be sent to those with the greatest need and with the greatest efficiency”, and I really appreciate that the author(s) took the time to investigate such agencies and make them better known to the public. This article was extremely informative and I wish I would have read it or similar articles when I was first donating after the crisis.

On another note, I had never thought about how a country’s resources and level of development could affect how donations are used and how effective the donations are. Although I wouldn’t wish a disaster of this magnitude on anyone, I am curious to see how lesser-developed areas would distribute and utilize large monetary donations during a time of crisis. If an area is devastated, for example, but they do not have skilled doctors, access to markets/stores to purchase supplies, or necessary equipment, how would the money be used? How would the country care for its injured people, and how would they work on rebuilding the infrastructure of a large area? The money could possibly be used to immediately help displaced people (i.e. provide food, clothing, etc.), but I wonder to what degree the donations would benefit the nation in the long-run. Perhaps in this scenario using donations to fund skilled physicians, construction workers, etc. and the purchase of advanced machinery to send to the affected area would be more practical. The north of Japan has suffered a great tragedy, but luckily the rest of Japan and its skilled people, along with people from around the world are here to support and rebuild the affected area. Recovery may be slow, but I am confident that one day not too far in the future Japan will be restored to its original glory.

Technoscience

Although I’ve only been living in Japan for about two months now, I’m beginning to feel comfortable here, and that I am much more a part of this community than I was before. Hopefully, though, the natives don’t feel the way I do about Tokyo and all its technological wonders - surrounded by the immense buildings, (almost) ceaseless trains and shining lights in a thriving metropolis, I feel almost invincible despite the recent disaster. No matter where I am in Tokyo, I never feel truly abandoned – even if the buildings and cars are out of reach, I can feel the presence of the city and its people around me, which creates a sort of protective bubble that I’ve never felt before. The technological advancements that have been made in this country are truly amazing to me, but I can only imagine how devastating one must feel when these objects have been taken away in dire situations such as the one that occurred on 3.11. I’ve never been to the north of Japan before, but if it contains even a quarter of Tokyo’s technology and density, I can’t imagine that anyone living there would have been prepared for such a tragedy. 

This being said, rather than prepare people for disasters, I am more inclined to believe that technology has actually made people much more vulnerable to their effects. When the constant threat of nature’s devastation is removed from a society, the people begin to forget how to work with the land, and instead devise new ways to work against it for their own benefit. It’s true that some forms of technology can help to protect, but the fact that Japan and other developed nations have used technology to further put themselves in danger (i.e. building heavily in places that are prone to disaster) has almost cancelled out all the positive effects that technology brings to society. I don’t believe that the victims of 3.11 were prepared for some disasters and not others – technology has brought us to the point where we have lost touch with nature and the variety of hardships it brings. I feel that at best we can use our technological knowledge and advancements to help repair damage that has been done, but until we regain our understanding of the land and its power, disasters in modern societies will never become preventable.

I’ve seen my share of horrific disaster movies that people seem to be so interested in, but similarly to how we cannot prevent disasters, I don’t believe that we can ever be completely mentally and emotionally prepared for them either. Seeing death and destruction on the big screen so frequently has almost desensitized me to the images – as long as I know that in reality no one was harmed, the act of viewing such images no longer brings me feelings of devastation. Seeing images and video clips revolving around the catastrophe up north, however, was sickening – even though the disaster may not be able to match something that a special effects artist could dream up, knowing that the destruction was real and that people were lost and killed evoked emotions in me that a movie never could. No matter what images are already circulating – even images from previous, real-world disasters – I don’t believe anyone could be prepared to handle the shock that comes when a disaster occurs in our present world and time. Even if another catastrophe were to occur, more lives and property and all that is real to the Japanese people would still be lost, and so the effects of the aftermath would still be just as great.

What I am really curious about is what role technology played in alerting the people before the disaster struck. From the view that I saw as a foreigner, it seems as if the disaster completely took people by surprise, and that they had no or little time to plan an escape. Given that Japan is so prone to disasters, I would think that a significant amount of time and effort would be put into researching how to predict earthquakes, tsunamis, and other similar occurrences. Perhaps doing so is much more difficult than I could imagine, but I was just surprised at how the tsunami came and devastated the land and its people so quickly and unexpectedly. 

Blame

When dire situations such as the disaster in Tohoku occur, blame is almost always linked to the government in one way or another, but an article in the Los Angeles Times infers otherwise. The article “Who’s to Blame for Fukushima” by Anupam Chander states that because the American company GE aided in the design of the affected reactors, it is necessary to assess their level of responsibility in the matter. Unfortunately for the Tokyo Power Electric Company, Japanese law states that liability rests solely in the hands of the operator rather than the designer, and so GE has escaped from this situation virtually unscathed while the Tokyo Power Electric Co. has suffered from significant losses, both monetary and otherwise.

I don’t feel that the author of this article is trying to exclusively blame GE for the Fukushima nuclear disaster, but I do believe that he wishes to encourage people to question the appropriateness of the Japanese government’s liability policy. Although the author does not directly criticize GE for developing faulty reactors and the incident took place solely on Japanese soil, I sense that he finds it unfair to blindly place all the blame on the operator when other forces may be at fault. While the author only demands that we take his words into consideration, however, thousands of victims are demanding monetary compensation from the Tokyo Power Electric Co., indicating that in the public eye blame has already been thrust upon a single or a few institutions. Whether or not this is the correct belief and action, it is clearly still quite difficult to determine, at least to me and the author of this article.

To read the article, click the link below:

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/01/opinion/la-oe-chander-ge-liability-20110401