Скачать или смотреть Cafes for low income children grow across Japan

(18 Sep 2016) LEAD IN:
Volunteer cafes for poor children are springing up across Japan, despite the country being seen as one of the wealthy and influential G8 group of nations.
The cafe's are catering for children from low income families, or whose parents work late are unable to ensure they're fed and cared for.

STORY-LINE:
There is a warm family atmosphere here at the Kodomo Hotto Station cafeteria.
It could be a family dinner, but these children are being fed and cared for by volunteers in a modest apartment in Tokyo.
On the menu tonight is curry, rice, salad and fruit.
This is a weekly dinner known in Japan as "kodomo shokudo," or "children's cafeterias".
They are growing in number across Japan, part of a grassroots community effort to address a range of child-related issues.
These range from poverty to ensuring youngsters whose parents are forced to work late get proper dinner.
The youngsters here are a mixture of volunteers and adult carers as well as children who are here out of need.
Those who are experiencing need are deliberately not identified.
This is through concern that public exposure of their attendance here might lead to harassment at school and in their neighbourhood, or that it may even affect them when applying for jobs in the future.
Poverty in Japan is largely hidden, as it can lead to public shame and discrimination.
It's estimated there are over three hundred places like this, were serving free or low-cost meals across Japan.
Japan's rising affluence over the past seventy years has banished most of the memory of the lean years during and after World War II.
Then children and their families went hungry, starving because there wasn't an established framework to help them.
Now, despite modern conveniences and being a world economic power, Japan has a child poverty rate which UNICEF says is the tenth highest among the world wealthiest countries.
In 2014 a Japanese government study found one-in-six children were living in relative poverty, this means their families were earning less than half the amount made by middle income households.
That's when Misako Omura started this weekly dinner in Tokyo's working class Arakawa district.
It's a space to welcome local children who might not get enough support from their families, schools and communities.
Her initiative is supported by donations and a grant from the municipal office.
It aims to counter the void left as communities move away and family ties unravel, leaving many parents and children isolated and struggling to cope.
The children and the volunteers who come to help pay 300 Yen ($3 US) for dinner.
Her aim is to make the children feel they are attached to a community and the hope is they will then in turn support the next generation.
"There's always a possibility a child may become disheartened. That is why it is places like these (that are important) where they can interact with a variety of people, or see different sets of values, interact with different adults (outside the family), interact with students who are closer to their age but just a little older, and by doing so find their own way out."
For the volunteers too, the evening is rewarding.
High school pupil Kazuma Omoto says: "The reason why I am coming here is to find myself and also to learn how to interact with children - its a wonderful place for that. I come here every week and going forward, I hope I can study and learn many different things for myself."
Families often skimp on food and other necessities to ensure children are dressed well enough to avoid being seen as disadvantaged.


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