A nursery school for Japanese children, thanks to the generosity of Varese

In the last few weeks, the winds of war that have been blowing at our door have swept away the drama that held the world with bated breath, one month ago. Today, Japan is on the inside pages of newspapers, and the nuclear danger, which has reached “Level 7” (like Chernobyl) has been replaced by “the short trial reform” and by Gaddafi. But there is a group of people who are working for the benefit of the friendship between two countries: on the one side, there is “our” Besano, on the other, Minami Sanriku, a town twinned with the village in Valceresio, that no longer exists.

The Japanese town, which was in the Miyagi Province, was completely swept away by the tsunami last 11 March.

“A few evenings ago,” said the spokesperson for a group of people from Besano, who have decided to put into practice their desire to help their Japanese “twins”, “we took part in a meeting with the town council to define a line of action that involves cultural associations, to collect funds to help the inhabitants (particularly the children) in the zone most hit, with which Besano is twinned.”

The funds are being collected in collaboration with the “Japanese Culture Centre of Milan”, to whom the money will go.

“We rejected the idea of sending money via other, large organisations, and we’ve managed to allocate the donations for the building of a nursery school, right in the area that Besano is twinned with (Minami Sanriku, formerly Utatsu). Now, we have to try to inform people throughout this part of Varese Province, so that we manage to collect a large sum. We’re getting the villages around the valley, the mountain communities and various associations involved. We’ve also opened an account for this initiative, at the Porto Ceresio branch of the Banca Popolare di Sondrio.”

The nursery school is expected to cost about €1 million, and the plans can be inspected on the website of the Japanese Culture Centre of Milan, where you will also find details of the bank account, if you want to make a donation.

The history of the twinning of Besano with “Utatsu”, which today is part of the town of Minami Sanriku, was already written about by VareseNews, because of the concern of some of the people of Besano; after the earthquake, they were no longer able to get in contact with the people they knew in Japan. From a series of inquiries, in which the Japanese Culture Centre of Milan also took part, it was discovered that two of the three people being sought were most probably dead; their names were found in the list of people killed by the tsunami, and registered by the Japanese authorities.

However, the names of the people sought by the people of Besano are very common among the Japanese who live in that part of the island, and so, the deceased might be different people with the same name.