Foreign technical trainees work to process wakame seaweed in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, on Jan. 18. (Shigetaka Kodama)
KESENNUMA, Miyagi Prefecture Wataru Sugawara has done his part to make this city attractive to technical trainees from Indonesia, a population segment deemed vital for Kesennuma’s continuing efforts to revive from the 2011 tsunami disaster.
Sugawara, the 46-year-old president of civil engineering company Sugawara Kogyo, opened an Islamic house of worship in summer 2019 and established a next-door restaurant that does not serve pork.
Local residents are also hosting Japanese language classes twice a month.
But the number of trainees is still falling short of levels needed to prop up the depleted work forces in the city’s fishery and seafood processing industries.