One of our NGO members, Ms. Nagamine, has brought three wheelchairs which she had received from her friends to our warehouse. She is a regular voluntary member of our NGO and she always joins our activity with her daughter, Kanon. It’s nice of her to bring wheelchairs she’s got from her friends at Kanon’s special school now and then. Thank you!

   As for wheelchairs from special schools, there has been little supply from schools in the Kanto district since April due to new coronavirus, though many schools say, “(Please wait) Until Corona has settled down.” So the warehouse we rent for storing wheelchairs has much open space now. The stock will become even smaller when we have finished Myanmar project.

July 31, 2020   Secretariat  

  As we are still under the influence of the new coronavirus, we did refurbishing work in a small group. In spite of the changeable weather five members came for today’s activity: Mr. Miyata from Waku Waku Kobo Co., Ltd., three members from Vietnamese group, and one of our director, Mr. Akine.
  Mr. Miyata, who does manufacturing and sales of wheelchairs and sitting retainers at Waku Waku Kobo in Hanno city, is a pro technician and he came over to give us technical support. There were also three Vietnamese members experienced in refurbishing work. We don’t want to run any risk of corona virus infection, so we’ve decided to do our activity with a small number of people. While working we kept complete sterilization with alcohol in mind and we got all the members to wear a face shield.

July 26, 2020      Hirokazu Morita

(Left) Refurbishing work in the warehouse. We worked instructed by Mr. Miyata(right front).
(Right) It was so muggy inside. We took a rest for water so as not to have a heat stroke.

I did an arm touch with Mr. Miyata instead of shaking hands.

  The other day a father and mother in Kawagoe visited me with a new wheelchair. They said that their child, who was going to use it, had passed away before it was completed and that they thought it impossible to dispose of the brand-new wheelchair. They talked to their child’s teacher about the new wheelchair and the teacher referred to them our NGO. As I told them our project in progress is Myanmar, they requested that their wheelchair be delivered to a child in Myanmar. We’d like to meet their request and send the wheelchair to Myanmar.

July 24, 2020　Hirokazu Morita

This is the brand-new wheelchair. The tires are still covered with plastic sheets.

  Under the current difficult situation, we’ve got news from Vietnam and Malaysia that they received our wheelchairs.

== 5 wheelchairs for Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam ==
  In March this year we got a wheelchair request mail from Haruka Kato, who lives in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Kato, occupational therapist, is a member of Japan International Cooperation Agency(JICA). We sent five wheelchairs to the rehabilitation center in Ho Chi Minh City, where she is working. We entrusted the transport to a Vietnamese trading company in Japan, Raifuku Boeki. The article of this news is from here.
　
  Kato, now staying in Japan due to the Corona virus, told us that she had received a mail saying the rehabilitation center in Ho Chi Minh City, got the five wheelchairs. As those wheelchairs left Japan in the beginning of March, it took almost four months to get there. We hope they will make good use of our five wheelchairs.

== 180 wheelchairs for Malaysia ==
    The ship loaded with 180 wheelchairs for Malaysia departed Tokyo port on June 12, and arrived at Port Klang, the biggest trading port in Malaysia, on July 1. Our partner in Malaysia is capable of refurbishing wheelchairs on their own, so we sent 146 wheelchairs out of 180 unrefurbished. They say they will deliver the 34 refurbished wheelchairs right away.

The photo shows the container which transported 180 wheelchairs to Port Klang.


  Though our activities have been restricted in many ways, we feel happy that we were able to deliver wheelchairs to needy children.

July 5, 2020    Secretariat

  We cancel our next monthly meeting on June 21 to prevent the spread of new corona virus infection.

June 21, 2020   Secretariat

  The ship loaded with 180 wheelchairs for Malaysia left Tokyo port on June 12, expecting to reach Port Klang, the biggest port of Malaysia, around June 23. The total number of the wheelchairs for Malaysia is now 1,423, including this delivery. This is the biggest number among all the donated countries. The Donation record graph is from here.
  As our partner in Malaysia is capable of cleaning and refurbishing wheelchairs, we sent 146 out of 180 wheelchairs unrefurbished. We’re glad that we were able to send wheelchairs under this situation since we haven’t been able to hold our monthly meetings for more than three months.

  We loaded 180 wheelchairs into the container at Tama Packing Industry Co., Ltd on June 9. The members were Tama Packing Industry employees and some of our NGO.

(Left) We carried 180 wheelchairs packed in the warehouse on wodden pallets.
(Right) We used a forklift for loading.

(Left) After all the loading was finished, we closed the door and locked the seal.
(Right) The truck towing the big container.

  The new coronavirus infection has not yet died down. In order to prevent infection from our activity we cancel our monthly meetings from June through August. We hope everyone understands the situation. We’d like you to join us again when we restart our activity. Please read the message from our president Morita on the TOPICS of the top page.

  The ship loaded with 90 wheelchairs for Paraguay left the port of Tokyo on February 24 and arrived Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, on May 4. It was a long journey of more than two months.
  In Paraguay, like the rest of the world, there were severe restrictions for various activities for the purpose of preventing new coronavirus infection and delivering wheelchairs was suspended too.
  Then the Paraguay Embassy informed us that their government had started to give permission to restart activities and they expected that they would be able to deliver wheelchairs around May 24. We hope our 90 wheelchairs are being delivered now. We will update how the delivery goes as we get more information.

  This marital transport was done for free thanks to Ocean Network Express Japan (ONE JAPAN). We’d like to express our gratitude to them. Many thanks!