Daigo Yamazaki of Otsuchi High School

Daigo Yamazaki
Otsuchi High School
3rd Year

Originally from Kirikiri, Otsuchi, Yamazaki is currently a third year student at Otsuchi High School.
He was in the 6th grade when the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami hit. Since graduating from middle school, he’s thought he’d enjoy working at the Otsuchi Town Hall in the future. At Otsuchi High School, he is a member of the Reconstruction Club.

Along with being student council president, his role in the club allows him to become involved in the reconstruction and rebuilding of Otsuchi as a high school student, and to tell people about his experiences.

Rebuilding Otsuchi through the Reconstruction Club

Otsuchi High School's Reconstruction Club, which was started up by the high school students themselves, gets involved in many kinds of activities. It has a community development team, a publicity team, a weather observation team, a kids' station team, a disaster prevention team, a team that reaches out to other schools, and so on.

Nothing was left in the town after the disaster, so it has since worked on raising ground levels and building homes and public housing. "So this is how a town is built," Daigo thought with interest as he watched it all unfold in front of his eyes.

"We travel outside of the prefecture to learn about how other places recovered from disasters, like the Great Hanshin Earthquake and the Niigata Earthquake. We also visit schools that have given us support. We express our thanks, and tell them what we've learned from the disaster and how we've grown from it," said Daigo, who is making an effort to spread information on the situation in Otsuchi by interacting with other schools.

A high schooler's idea of Otsuchi's future

"I felt like people have had less opportunity to communicate with other people after the disaster. I want to build an environment where the locals are able to freely talk with other locals. And, if people from other places visit Otsuchi and talk to the locals here, it will make not only make the locals happy, but also cheer up the visitors, too. I want to make a place that people would have fun living in, and will make people from outside want to come to," he said in relation on rebuilding Otsuchi.