Specified Nonprofit Corporation Freespace Tanpopo walking with Children
is based in Tsurumi Ward, Yokohama City, and aims to create together a safe place where children and young people who cannot find their place in school, home, or community. In the safe place, they can spend time comfortably, as well as a place for encounters and learning outside of school. This time, we interviewed Ms. Aoshima, who serves as the chairperson.

Cake making activities at the December 2024 Christmas event

Please tell us what motivated Ms. Aoshima to start the free space activities.

It all started when my son became truant from school. After the class reorganization in fifth grade, my son gradually became reluctant to go to school.
At that time, I was working at an after-school program therefore I had some experience. I initially thought it was just an ordinary fight and tried teaching my child coping strategies. Looking back now, I feel embarrassed about that.
However, despite providing advice and support, my son truly stopped going to school. At one point, after he had been absent from school for a while, when he told me that his lunch bag had been found discarded in the garbage bin, I realized "he's being bullied."
From that moment, I began participating in local parent support groups, where I learned for the first time that there were many families with children who weren't attending school.
Thereafter, we started hosting monthly dinner gatherings at our home for children and their parents. Eventually, we wanted to create a place where children could gather and play on an ongoing basis, so we rented an office at our current location and began our activities. We established a Specified Nonprofit Corporation in 2014.

　　A scene from the September 2024 sleepover event

Since this is the 17th year of your organization's activities, could you tell us about the difficulties you've faced in running the organization, or about experiences that have given you a sense of fulfillment?

The most challenging aspects are funding and developing successors. With our current board members aging, we face the question of how to find successors. To pay salaries to young people, we need to expand our reaches and build such as corporate supporting memberships to achieve greater financial stability.
The moments when I feel most fulfilled are when I can witness children's growth and new decisions up close over long periods of time. Every child is carving out their own path and starting new endeavors. Some children choose to return to school, saying things like 'I want to try going to school because I'd like to obtain this particular qualification.'
Everyone is different, but we're able to provide long-term support as they take their own steps forward, one by one.

　　A scene from the September 2024 sleepover event

Please tell us about the activities that utilize FIT donations.

We plan to use the donations for an initiative titled “Exciting and Thrilling Emotional Experiences for Children Who Don’t Attend School! Dream Realization Project.” Through this project, we aim to provide children who are not attending school with the kinds of experiences and opportunities for artistic appreciation they might otherwise miss, helping to spark their emotions and expand their dreams.
As part of this initiative, we will expand the scale of the rakugo performances by storyteller Shunputei Shoyo, which we have continuously hosted since 2019. Mr. Shoyo himself has personal experience with school non-attendance, and we are organizing these events not only to inspire children but also to raise awareness and foster understanding of this issue within the local community.

Please tell us about the future activity plan.

We plan to continue developing and implementing the “Exciting and Thrilling Emotional Experiences for Children Who Don’t Attend School! Dream Realization Project” over the next three years. In particular, we are considering organizing travel opportunities for children who have missed out on school trips, as well as hosting events that recreate the atmosphere of school cultural festivals.

What kind of support can we provide?

As for economic support, we would like to increase our corporate supporting members to strengthen our operational structure, so we would be grateful if you could provide assistance in that regard. Additionally, as human resource support, we would appreciate it if volunteers with expertise in English learning and other specialized knowledge could engage with the children.

Finally, if there is anything you would like to convey to society about issues of school non-attendance, please let us know.

While the number of children is decreasing due to the declining birthrate, children who don't attend school are on an increasing trend. However, I think that school non-attendance is a world that is not well understood by anyone other than those directly affected and school education personnel. There's somehow a feeling that it's something we shouldn't touch upon, and children tend to be perceived as gloomy, with misunderstandings like 'Why don't they go to school and just skip classes?'
I think of school non-attendance as being like a car with a dead battery. When a battery dies, it needs to be recharged, but it can't be charged from the outside—it must be charged from within. We don't know when the charging will be complete, but as it gradually gets charged, the person becomes able to move from within themselves, and the car starts running. When there's a family environment where they say 'You're fine just as you are now' and 'We'll support you no matter what,' children get recharged quite well. Because they get recharged at home, it leads to feelings like 'Maybe I'll try doing something.'
While there are various triggers for school non-attendance, the way children get hurt differs completely from child to child, so I feel that children who have been truly deeply hurt will never be able to forget it no matter what we try to do. On the other hand, even though they couldn't forget their painful experiences and didn't go to school, we believe that the time they didn't attend doesn't become completely wasted time, but rather it's time when that child faced themselves and worked hard at various things despite their suffering.
That is precisely why it is so important for people to understand the reality of school non-attendance. By raising awareness, I believe we can begin to change the circumstances surrounding children who do not attend school. My hope is that more people will come to recognize that this world exists.

From left: Representative Officer Aoshima-san (second), Director Ichinose-san (third) and FIT2024 Organising Committee Members Tsuji-san, Kida-san, and Yamamoto-san

Specified Nonprofit Corporation Freespace Tanpopo walking with Children
https://www.freespace-tanpopo.com/