Ricoh 2012 Annual Report Download - page 85

Ricoh Group Sustainability Report 2012 84
Top Message About us Our Activities
To Grow with Society
Data
● Community Mobile Data Printing Service
Taking special care of each resident’s situation
In order to meet the needs of municipalities for distribution of
announcements and for printing and copying important documents
including disaster victim certificates, Ricoh’s vehicles, equipped with MFPs
and PCs, made regular rounds visiting temporary housing in Higashi-
Matsushima-shi in Miyagi Prefecture, and Kamaishi-shi, Rikuzentakata-
shi and Otsuchi-cho in Iwate Prefecture. Taking into consideration the
difficult situation faced by the people, including senior citizens and
those with physical disabilities in particular, we paid special attention to
personal communication with those affected. Through these visits over
time, many people began using the service in order to photocopy disaster
victim certificates, health insurance cards, drivers’ licenses, inheritance-
related documents, requests for debris removal, directories of school
classes, and other purposes. There was one case of a person who had not
been able to contact his friends because he lost his telephone directory in
the disaster so he photocopied his town’s directory. This service ended in
March 2012, but MFPs have been installed
in meeting rooms of the temporary
housing in accordance with requests from
municipalities, which are now in charge
of their management.
● Student Reconstruction Conference
Using ideas from high school students for
disaster area reconstruction
Ricoh co-hosted the Student Reconstruction Conference with the National
Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. The conference was held
in Rikuzentakata-shi, Iwate Prefecture, on August 6, 2011 and attended
by 40 students from Iwate Prefectural Takata Senior High School. The
students, ardent hometown supporters with their futures in their own
hands, held discussions to explore the theme of community building
toward reconstruction. By allowing their ideas to flow in a think-outside-
the-box manner and taking inspiration from advice provided from invited
professional architects, the students were able to piece together ideas for
creating the town’s symbolic facilities, focusing on the interaction of the
people, and they presented the ideas to Rikuzentakata Mayor Futoshi Toba.
In order to ensure that the ideas borne from the event were
effectively put to use towards rebuilding the town, the ideas of the
students, supported
by their enthusiasm,
were passed on to a
local reconstruction
initiative undertaken
by a team of children in
Rikuzentakata-shi, led
by Save the Children
Japan. Ricoh will
continue to support their
activities to this end.
● Tohoku Re-use Center Kitakata
Supporting the restart of business operations
and the creation of new employment in
disaster-hit areas
Ricoh opened the Tohoku Re-use Center Kitakata on December 15, 2011
thanks to cooperation from Kitakata-shi, Fukushima Prefecture. In order
to make this possible, we worked in concert with local administrative
bodies and as a result of their support, we were able to receive subsidies
from the prefectural emergency job creation fund, recognized as a part of
the program. Accordingly, we prioritized people from the affected areas
for the purpose of hiring them. The re-use center collects used MFPs
from the market. Machines are dismantled, cleaned, and maintained,
with parts replaced when necessary. To assist local companies trying to
restart their operations, Ricoh
opened the center at the earliest-
possible time. The center lends
out machines free of charge
(except for maintenance service
and expendable supplies) that
have been maintained for re-use
to clients whose MFPs were
damaged in the disaster. To date,
a few hundred machines have
been loaned out to our clients.
● Save the Memory Project
Bringing memorable photographs to their
owners
The Ricoh Group began its Save the Memory Project in partnership with
local governments of affected areas, under which photographs and
albums damaged by the tsunami are retrieved and scanned into MFPs in
order to return the digitized images with original photos to their owners.
By March 2012, we digitized approximately 300,000 photos that
were retrieved and cleaned in Minamisanriku-cho and Onagawa-cho in
Miyagi Prefecture, and Rikuzentakata-shi in Iwate Prefecture, with the
help of around 500 volunteer Group employees. The image data has been
made available for search through the Internet by disaster victims from
photo centers set up in local government offices.
Since April 2012, we have offered a service package that carries out
the entire process, from digitization of photos to installing equipment
and providing cloud service, as well as personnel and technical support
necessary for photo center
operation. The service was first
introduced in Watari-cho in
Miyagi Prefecture, followed by
municipalities located along the
coast in northeastern Japan.