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Nippon Volunteer Network Active in Disaster, Inc.
1-5-1 Wakihamakaigan-dori, Chuo-ku, Kobe, Hyogo 651-0073, JAPAN
TEL:+81-78-231-9011 FAX:+81-78-231-9022

The Nippon Volunteer Network Active in Disaster (NVNAD: located in Nishinomiya, Japan: the President, Toshiaki Tanaka) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization established after the 1995 Great Hanshin (Kobe) earthquake. The NVNAD was incorporated as the first Non-Profit Organization in Hyogo Prefecture in April 1999, according to a newly introduced law. In an emergency, it is activated for domestic and international disaster as one of agencies for coordinating volunteers, their relationships with local governments, communities, victims, and other organizations, and donation goods/will; while, during peace time, it is working for the following three categories:

1. To network disaster volunteer organizations in Japan.
   
2. To provide local communities with the workshop called "Preventing Disaster Without Saying Disaster Prevention."
   
3. To run a series of lectures/activities for future disaster volunteers and local governments.
   

History

The NVNAD was formerly called Nishinomiya Volunteer Network (NVN), which was originally established immediately after the Great Hanshin Earthquake(January 17, 1995) in Nishinomiya, Japan. The NVN was effective not only in its ways of coordinating voluntary organizations and spontaneous volunteers working for the victims in Nishinomiya city, but also in maintaining reliable partnership with the Nishinomiya city government. Because the effective coordination and partnership with local government have never been observed in former disaster in Japan, the NVN has received much attention from public. Based on these experiences, the NVN was re-organized into the Nippon Volunteer Network Active in Disaster in Januray 1996.

Disaster Relief

The NVNAD has been activated in, for instance:

Indonesia-Irian Jaya Earthquake (1996)
Japan Sea Oil Spill Accident (1997)
Floods in northern Japan (1998)

Currently, the NVNAD has been activated for the Turkey and Taiwan EQ. As for Turkey, we have collected donation money and cooperated with Japan-Turkey Cultural Exchange Association to send tents to the victims; while for Taiwan, we visited there twice, one was on the day of EQ, and have been cooperating with various people in both countries to coordinate needs and seeds by exchanging a ﾒbi-weekly newsletterﾓ.

With the NVOAD

The NVNAD has sent its delegation to the AVLC since 1995 to learn more about the disaster management system with volunteers. It has been getting more and more information about disaster management from the NVOAD members and various VOADs as well as FEMA. At the 1997 AVLC in New Orleans, the NVOAD and NVNAD agreed to issue the mutual understanding sheet to keep friendship with each other.

Staff and Members

President Toshiaki Tanaka
Staff Mitsukazu Hirose
Staff Hironobu Teramoto

Research members
Tomohide Atsumi, Ph.D., Hisatoshi Mori, Isamu Suzuki, Toshie Watanabe, Itaru Yoshida

Executive Board
Twelve Board Members (Accountant, Community Manager, Lawyer, Medical Doctor, Presidents of a for-profit and a non-profit organization, Officers of a local government and a company, Professor Emeritus, and Professors)

Supporting Members
Currently more than 450 individual members and 10 corporations support the NVNAD financially.