Services for People with Mental Disabilities

Yesterday visited JHC (Joint House Cosmo) Itabashi. JHC provides services for people with mental disabilities. They have many centers catering to the different needs of thier members. The local government there allocated 50% of the budget for welfare services which covers PWDs, senior citizen & children. So Itabashi has a reputation for being an inclusive community for PWDs. Here the PWDs can have a decent life and work and live together with the community. We first went to the JHC club house Sun Marina. Members can come here to socialise and have some training with thier peers. The guy next to me is Toshiyuki san. He's works at JHC and is also one of the committee members who planned the course I'm taking now.

Lunch at Sun Marina, cheap only 300 yen!

Next we went to another of their center, Akatsuka a bakery. The sell cookies and cakes mostly to the residents around here.

One of thier gift packages for the summer season

Another one
One of the members working there.

Next we went to Kosmo, a small restaurant. Here they open twice a week and also do meals delivery to offices and also to senior citizens.

Feedback session.

I think I learned a lot about people with mental disabilities for the past few days. As I shared in my earlier post, I dun know much about them. But I know a lot of them in Malaysia is just stuck in the hospital for many, many, many years some even all their life. That was the situation in Japan about 10-15 years ago until the gov came out with the law for MDs. Now they are trying to release about 76,000 of MDs who are ready to be integrated back into the community from the hospital. From what I've seen they are very, very capable to work. Just have to find a suitable job and not too stressful.