Yokohama Rubber Co. Ltd. has inaugurated a program in which employees, including employees of Yokohama subsidiaries, can take part in relief activities in areas affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011.
Here's how the program works: Yokohama employees selected from among would-be participants travel to the affected areas and participate in the recovery effort.
On July 11, 28 employee volunteers took part in the first mission under the new program. They traveled to northeast Japan and spent three days clearing mud from ditches and clearing debris from the surrounding land in the Miyagi Prefecture city of Higashi-Matsushima.
By April 28, Yokohama Group companies and their employees had donated a total of approximately 88.5 million yen to the relief effort. That total comprises donations of 61.7 million yen by Yokohama Group companies and their employees in Japan, including a 50 million yen corporate donation by the parent company, and 26.8 million yen by group companies and their employees in other nations.
The companies and employees made their contributions mainly through the Red Cross societies in their nations (for more information, see "Japan still rebuilds; Yokohama helps").
Yokohama has also supported the recovery effort by:
* furnishing relief supplies,
* offering employment to persons who lost their livelihoods in the disaster, and
* providing shelter to persons displaced by the disaster in municipal and prefectural housing rented at company expense.
The volunteer-support program "is a measure for accompanying financial and material support with direct human interaction," says Yokohama.
