Six boys and girls, the youngest only 4 years old, dined with local volunteers one September evening in a nursing care facility in Shiga Prefecture as part of a service to care for children of single-parent households when the parent is away.

A local social welfare council and a social welfare corporation in Shiga jointly launched the new service in March to take care of such children, inviting them to a day care center once a week to eat, bathe and stay until 9 p.m. after the center's usual clients — elderly people — return home.

Children can study there with the help of university student volunteers or play games. The group hopes to offer children a place to stay and also learn basic living practices and manners, such as saying "itadakimasu" before meals, a form of grace, and washing their hair properly.