Japan is being encouraged to move away from its much- maligned approach of handing out cash for refugee relief and to instead deal with the shortage of trained aid workers in Asia.
A three-week international training program for relief workers is being held in Fukuoka Prefecture in a bid to cope with the steadily increasing number of asylum seekers in Asia.
The HELP program -- which stands for Health Emergency in Large Populations, as well as for Health, Ethics, Law and Politics -- was created in Geneva in 1986 to meet the needs of professionals working in emergency situations.
"Japan was praised for its direct investment along with its personnel dispatched abroad," said Etsuko Kita, a public health expert at Japanese Red Cross Kyushu International University of Nursing. "But now we need to invite to Japan those future relief workers who cannot afford any medical training in their homelands."