For Yugo Hirano's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Japanese aid worker Eriko Hibi is unequivocal when giving her view of the ongoing situation in Syria. "We cannot overcome this unending crisis unless we do something other than handing out supplies," says Hibi, 52, who works for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the ...
A Yokohama charity worker who has spent time in Ebola-hit West Africa has urged more global support to protect orphaned children at risk of abuse. Risa Kojima worked in Liberia to protect children in the aftermath of the Ebola epidemic that killed more than 4,000 ...
Masayuki Fukasawa, a veteran journalist at a Japanese-language newspaper in Sao Paulo, has taken inspiration from his own migrant story to compile a history of Japanese settlement in Brazil over the past century. "I wanted to incorporate into modern history the story of how these ...
A UNICEF child protection officer from Japan is helping child soldiers in the Central African Republic return to society and lead normal lives. "We hope that they will return to being normal children and be allowed to play and laugh freely," Ryoko Ogawa, 35, said ...
From the ancient Indian city of Mohenjo-daro to Buddhist Gandhara art, South Asia is rich in cultural heritage but under threat from economic sprawl and a lack of restoration capabilities. To help preserve cultural sites at risk, a group of Japanese archaeologists has set up ...
Retired schoolteacher Hidefumi Owada feels helpless whenever he returns to his deserted home in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture. Abandoned following the meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, it is now derelict and the garden is overgrown. "I feel miserable whenever I return home for ...
Laughter is often heard from some 40 elderly people who receive day care services at a care home in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, thanks to the presence of a Filipino worker. "When I speak in English, grandpas seem delighted," Charito Ito said, revealing her secret for ...
Chinese women in Sukagawa, Fukushima Prefecture, have formed a group to teach Chinese to half-Japanese and half-Chinese children, while sharing information and promoting interaction on the basis of their experiences following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that ravaged northeastern Japan. Early in February, Ai ...
Historian Naotsugu Hamada has proposed a new theory about the 1613 mission that Date Masamune, Sendai's then-feudal lord, sent to Europe and Mexico, arguing that he may have intended to use funds from trade with Mexico to reconstruct Tohoku, which had been rocked by ...
Having lost his daughter in the quake-tsunami disaster two years ago, Toshiro Sato, a teacher in Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, believes the best disaster prevention is not to forget what happened that fateful day and confront it. "I don't want to let any more students die ...
