Region served Kamagasaki, Osaka Main organ Newsletter (printed) Website Tabiji no Sato | Member Kyoyukai network Affiliations Jesuit, Catholic | |
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Jesuit Social Center Osaka (Tabiji no Sato) offers a variety of services to homeless day laborers and the unemployed in the congested slum of Kamagasaki in Osaka, Japan.
Contents
Kamagasaki
Kamagasaki is an overcrowded slum by the Osaka freeway, where companies pick up day laborers for odd jobs, or to avoid long-term commitment to them as employees. While the streets are always filled with homeless, underemployed people, things get worse in times of economic downturn. The people who migrate here looking for work may do well in their younger years, but with age they become less sturdy and linger away, perhaps receiving a small, monthly government doll and collecting recyclables at the dump if they don't receive work. Those in their late 50s and 60s are most in need of assistance.
Services
The Center is located in the middle of Kamagasaki and complements the services offered by other Christian organizations also engaged with the homeless workers. People from the center walk the streets one night a week checking for special needs among the homeless. Those needing medical care are given free passes to the Social Medical Center in Osaka. Blankets and pocket heaters are distributed in winter. Once a month church women make boiled rice balls for distribution. The Center is also open twice a week for "consultations", when the street people can get advice or just find relief in being listened to. Some can be helped to receive public welfare assistance. Those who have known the center and are living in shabby apartments are brought together for a community meal once a year, to give them a sense of belonging. A newsletter printed by the center also achieves this purpose.
The center offers seminars for students, youth groups, and adults, acquainting them with the realities of life on the fringes and the reasons for such a situation in Japan. It also fosters study groups and hosts men and women from religious congregations for an insertion experience, to draw closer to the experience of life among the homeless. They also visit the other charities in town and take the message home of what might be done. The interior joy and peace felt by some of these denizens of the inner city is also a revelation to many who visit.
The Jesuit Center hosts a secretariat for the Kyoyukai (Pleasant Stay) network of Christian organizations working in Kamagasaki, and publishes the newsletter on its behalf. The center helps distribute the food and clothing sent to Kyoyukai and helps with twice-weekly meals in the main park. It has a room available for other organizations to hold meetings and consultations, like “Asian Friends” which supports expatriate workers in the area.