Recovering from Disaster: Resilience and the Importance of Social Networks in Tohoku

Tuesday, May 25, 2021

6:00 - 7:00 PM EDT

Hosted online via Zoom

(Zoom link is in your registration confirmation e-mail)

How does a community rebuild after a devastating disaster like the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011? How important is a strong social network in these recovery efforts? How are social networks supported in Japan? We'll be discussing these questions and more.

Please join us for an event on wellness and social resilience in Japan's Tohoku region. We'll be inviting Professor and award-winning author Daniel Aldrich, Executive Director of World in Tohoku Mio Yamamoto, and Program Coordinator of Fukushima Cooperative Reconstruction Center Tsutomu Yamanaka to discuss their insights on Tohoku's recovery from the 3/11 disaster and what it has taken to rebuild. Moderating the discussion will be Allentza Michel, Founder and Principal & Creative Director of Powerful Pathways.

Daniel Aldrich

Mio Yamamoto

Mio leads WIT to nurture leaders who collaborate across boundaries to create a better society. In the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake, she co-founded WIT (World in Tohoku, formerly WiA) to support social entrepreneurs in the disaster-affected area. Mio has more than twelve years of experience in supporting high- impact social. Before starting WIT, Mio was a Partner of SVP Tokyo, and worked for Sumitomo Chemical and McKinsey & Co. Mio received an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management, and a BA with a major in International Relations from the University of Tokyo. She lives in Boston with her son, husband, and a cat.

Tsutomu Yamanaka

Educated at Yokohama City University, Tsutomu Yamanaka studied business and international economics before pursuing a degree in social work. He has served as Program Coordinator at the Fukushima Cooperative Reconstruction Center since 2020 and was Program Coordinator for Japan Platform for ten years prior.  Yamanaka has also worked as Project Manager of Primary Health Care Project in East-Timor and as Project Coordinator at the JICA-NGO Desk located there. 

Moderator:

Allentza Michel

Allentza Michel is an urban planner, artist, policy advocate and researcher with a background in community organizing. Her 17 years of diverse experience across community economic development, education, food security, public health and transportation inform her current work in civic design, community and organizational development, and social equity.

She founded and co-founded nonprofit-organizations and has served on many boards of community-based organizations, civic groups and coalitions, including her planning consultancy and civic events planning firm, Powerful Pathways. Ms. Michel received a Master's in Public Policy at Tufts University's Department of Urban & Environmental Planning and Policy, as a 2013 Neighborhood Fellow, with a concentration in Transportation Policy and Community Development. She has BAs in English and Social and Political Systems from Pine Manor College and a graduate certificate in Non-profit Management from Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.