Like many other coastal areas devastated by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, when entrepreneur Takashi Tachibana, 46, first stepped into the remote Ogatsu district to help Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, it was chaos.
Almost everything was lost in the tsunami-flattened town, and it was more than clear the community would experience depopulation if nothing was done, he said. When he considered the future, he felt it was crucial to bring children back.
"Everything was lost . . . there was nothing left for local children in Ogatsu," Tachibana said. "When I mulled ways to bring them back to Ogatsu, I thought of reviving career-experience workshops such as fishing and (forestry) that the local schools used to have."