TOMODACHI PROJECTs for TONGA by LAWB

Landscape Architects Without Border team in IFLA Asia Pacific Region and JLAU would like to inform you that we have donated 548,000 Japanese Yen to Mr. Ambassador Suka to support people in the Kingdom of Tonga. Also, we have delivered relief supplies worth 4,500,000 Japanese Yen to the country.

Japan Landscape Union has been provided landscape skills for disaster reconstruction and natural disasters since Tohoku Disaster in 2011. To use our comprehensive experiences in Japan, we started contributing from the beginning of humanitarian aid for Tonga.

Water and food infrastructure support are paramount in the first step to reconstructing a city from a disaster. However, we tend to forget the support of children and women. It is essential to provide play to care for children's trauma and hygiene products for women.

We have intensively collected relief supplies for children and women. It is also a lesson learned from the Great Tohoku Earthquake disaster of 2011. In particular, we called on the landscape architects of the child-rearing generation, succeeded in collecting them at community facilities, and received a large number of supplies from companies that produce hygiene products. We were also able to send the sunshades and tents for reconstruction activities in the heat. In the Kumamoto earthquake and floods, volunteers sometimes suffered from heatstroke, so I thought it was necessary even in a hot country like Tonga.

We believe that support and infrastructure reconstruction that consider human rights, society, and climate is indispensable for reconstructing the ever-increasing number of natural disasters.

With Mr. Suka, we discussed their reconstruction plan called "Building Back Better," which was authorized in March 2022. Especially, Nature-Based Solutions for Sustainable development goals would be the critical concept for "Better Reconstruction" to raise the country more resilient.

We are pleased to contribute to Tonga's ongoing reconstruction process toward a Nature-based response to natural disasters. In the global social situation, it will become more and more essential to help each other coexist and live with disasters.

Tomodachi project is not only humanitarian aid activity but also an outreach project for the countries facing a climate crisis and natural disasters. We want to express our deepest sympathies to the people in the Kingdom of Tonga and provide supplies to help those evacuated live in shelters and "Building Back Better" landscape for all.

We pray for your safety and security in the Kingdom of Tonga.