December ①Naka Ward, a Multicultural Community ➁Kill bacteria that cause food poisoning!

Among the 18 wards of Yokohama, Naka Ward has the highest percentage of non-Japanese residents, accounting for 10.9% of all ward residents as of the end of fiscal year 2022. Even nationally, it is a municipality with a high percentage of non-Japanese residents. Naka Ward promotes multicultural coexistence while placing importance on building ties between Japanese and non-Japanese residents in the community.

When considering community activities for the Alliance of Neighborhood Associations, we invite the staff from Naka International Lounge to participate and provide their opinions, including from the perspective of multicultural coexistence. We also translate flyers for community events into English, Chinese, and other languages so that people with overseas roots can feel that they too are welcome to participate in these events.

It is natural that people with overseas roots have different values and ways of thinking from Japanese people. It is not a matter of which is right or wrong, but rather of accepting each other without prejudice. I believe that by interacting with various people through local events, we will naturally come to accept each other’s values and ways of thinking.
This year, we are also looking into new projects for children in the Umechi area. Our goal is to first get children to participate in community events, and then to involve their parents’ generation as a way to create more interaction between people.

Yasuyuki Fujihira

Umechi Area Alliance of Neighborhood Associations

This facility opened in September 2017 in Yamada-cho, Naka Ward as the first facility in Yokohama that provides support to students who have just arrived in Japan and their guardians.
In order to help school-age children adjust quickly to Japanese schools, the facility offers intensive Japanese language instruction three days a week for about a month, gives children experience of school life, and offers guidance to parents in multiple languages, among other things.

At Himawari, we value communication that is not limited to conversation, and we create an environment where children can interact with each other through sports and games during lunch break. At Yokohama Yoshida Junior High School, where I used to work, around 40% of the students had overseas roots, and we made efforts to increase the number of school events to give the students more opportunities to interact with each other. When everyone works together on something in common, they can naturally get to know each other even if there is a language barrier. Just like school events, festivals and other events in the community may be a good opportunity for people to get to know each other.

Masumi Kanazawa

Principal,

Japanese Language Support Facility Himawari

Wrap meat and fish separately
Pack with cooling agents, etc.

After buying food, go home straight away without making any detours!
Put what you have bought in the fridge right away!

Wrap and store meat and fish so that juices do not leak out

Put food in the refrigerator as soon as you get home

Only fill up the refrigerator to about 70% capacity

Wash your hands well

Wash vegetables well and keep them away from meat and fish

Wash and sanitize knives, utensils, and dishcloths

Heat food thoroughly.

If you stop cooking halfway through, put the food in the refrigerator.

Use clean utensils and dishes when serving

Do not leave food sitting at room temperature for long periods of time

Divide food into small portions to cool it quickly

If food has been left too long or looks suspicious in any way, just throw it away

Heat thoroughly when reheating

All pages of Koho Yokohama Naka Ward Version (December issue) can be read in ten languages (Japanese, English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Thai, Portuguese, Spanish, Indonesian, and Vietnamese) from PCs and smart phones through multilingual machine translation provided by Catalog Pocket, a service for reading PR papers.
⇒　 Koho Yokohama Naka Ward Version (December issue) (Catalog Pocket) (외부 사이트)