Year 10 student Kao Iwatsuki (centre) volunteers as a storyteller, sharing her memories of the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. Source: Ruins of the Great East Japan Earthquake Kesennuma City Memorial Museum
The museum has a program that local students, from Year 7 to Year 12, volunteer as a storyteller and share their memories of the earthquake and tsunami with visitors and explain what happened in the city.
Some volunteer storytellers have only fragmented memories and some don't remember at all, as they were too young when the disaster happened eleven years ago.
However, this program is regarded as one of the most important attempts by local people to pass on the memories of the disaster to the next generations.
In the audio, Kao Iwatsuki and Shima Suenaga, both Year 10 students and volunteer storytellers, explain why they decided to join the program. And Ms Asako Fukuoka who oversees the program at the memorial museum and a disaster victim herself, shares her thoughts on the program.
Asako Fukuoka (right) oversees youth storytellers program at the Ruins of the Great East Japan Earthquake Kesennuma City Memorial Museum Source: Ruins of the Great East Japan Earthquake Kesennuma City Memorial Museum
”It's not an easy task"
Ms Fukuoka's daughter, who is Year 7 student, joined the storytelling program recently. The daughter was only two years old when the tsunami hit the area and she doesn't remember much about what happened.
"She doesn't remember what happened but it's reassuring and heartening to me that she wanted to become a storyteller to pass on the memories (of the earthquake and tsunami)," Ms Fukuoka said.
"School life is just busy enough to those students. You can't tell them to spend more time on this program. And once they graduate from high schools, most of the students move to other cities (to study or to work). They don't stay. Passing on the memories to future generations....It's not an easy task."
