On Monday, April 28th, new employees from the Tohoku region of the NTT Docomo Group visited the museum.
Last year, new employees at the NTT Docomo Group participated in the learning program as part of their new employee training, and this year, the newly hired employees also visited Minamisanriku Town as part of their training.
The learning program you saw this time was Regular Program 2 "Can you save your life at that time?". From the example of Minamisanriku Town, where many of the designated evacuation centers and evacuation sites in the town were hit by the tsunami during the earthquake, we learned that when a natural disaster occurs, we may face a situation that far exceeds our expectations. How did the witnesses, who were junior high and high school students at the time of the earthquake, evacuate and respond at the evacuation center that was hit by the tsunami that day? And how did the people who were firefighters, who were working to save lives, reconsider the meaning of "protecting your own life" after the earthquake? During the program, there are questions derived from the lessons learned and time for dialogue between participants. The feature of the learning program is that you can gain new realizations and ideas through these.
The participants this time were not only from the Tohoku region, but also from other areas, and some of them were from areas outside the Tohoku region and had not actually experienced the earthquake. Despite this, everyone was very surprised by the difficulty of responding to an actual earthquake and the footage that exceeded their imagination. They watched the footage with serious expressions, eager to learn about the earthquake.
After watching the learning program, the participants took part in a "bus tour of the learning program led by storytellers," and actually visited the disaster-stricken areas that appeared in the video and saw the places for themselves.
We received feedback from the new employees of the NTT Docomo Group who participated.
"Today I learned that the people in the disaster-stricken areas are more physically and mentally exhausted than I had imagined. As a Docomo Group employee, I would like to do my best to carry out my duties in the disaster recovery work so that I can support the people in the disaster-stricken areas through communications and help them return to their daily lives as soon as possible," he said.
Thank you to all the new employees of the NTT Docomo Group for visiting us.