Here’s our report on the event held on Friday, January 23, at Gardens Hall on the 4th floor of Hankyu Nishinomiya Gardens! It was organized by the NPO a little, with the theme of helping families with small children learn about disaster preparedness in a fun way 😌
At the entrance, there were firefighter outfits for kids to try on 🧑🚒 and a handmade fire truck photo booth that was so cute 🚒
Since the event was close to January 17, there was also a photo exhibition about the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake.
Stamp rally sheet
Once you stepped inside,
it was already bustling with lots of people from the 10:30 opening.
The opening featured a disaster-preparedness exercise performed by children 👦🏻👧🏻 They must have practiced a lot! It was absolutely adorable 🥰
The program continued at 11:00 with baby eurhythmics by Music School Plumeria 👶🏻 Usually, they use lots of ukuleles for lively Hawaiian-style eurhythmics, but since this was a disaster-preparedness event, parents and children enjoyed gentle movements designed with quiet places like evacuation shelters in mind.
12:00 – Handbell performance 🎶
13:30 – Picture book read-aloud live performance 📚
14:30 – Let’s dance together: disaster-preparedness exercise
15:00 – Mini forum
In addition to the program, there were plenty of other booths for parents and children to enjoy!
There was also a kids’ space 🐼 My daughter, who isn’t quite one yet, seemed happy just watching the older kids who came by 🥰
They were also serving minestrone-style risotto as disaster relief food 😋 A wonderful aroma filled the venue.
In Closing
This time, an instructor was invited from Ishinomaki City, an area affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake, and there was time to learn about disaster preparedness by listening to their experiences from that time. According to Sakaguchi from the organizing NPO a little, “By bringing together child-rearing support groups for these workshops, we wanted to create opportunities not only for people raising children to connect with one another and for support groups to connect with each other, but also for child-rearing support groups to start thinking about disaster preparedness as part of their everyday activities.” 😌 It was a great opportunity for even small children to learn in an easy-to-understand and enjoyable way about natural disasters, which can happen anytime, without warning 🙆♀️
Little House, operated by a little, is a relaxing cafe where you can visit with children, located just a short walk from Hankyu Nishinomiya Gardens.
Here it is on the map ↓