The Future of Music Rests Upon the Shoulders of Children

Thanks to Sound House’s opening in Onagawa, I had the opportunity to visit a nursery school in Ishinomaki next to Onagawa and a group home for children in Sendai. I also had the opportunity to meet many passionate people who are working on the front lines to confront the social issues that are affecting these areas. The more I learned about these issues, the more it became clear to me how these problems were really out of control to the point where the local government support has reached their limit with the lack of manpower and now they are overwhelmed. Still, the dedication from those who are fighting every day to help as many children as possible is inspiring.

To begin with, the warped Japanese educational system shows no signs of improvement. For example, the number of elementary and junior high school students who don’t attend school now has exceeded 200,000 children, or it is said to be closer to 300,000 children if you include those who cannot go to school due to illness or financial reasons. This is an unbelievably large number. This means that approximately 4-5% of children are not attending schools. Child abuse is also getting worse: the number of homicides identified as abuse alone has exceeded 70-80 cases per year, and it means that more than one child per week has died from abuse in Japan. This is the reality of Japanese society which is supposed to have a reputation for being peaceful.

Now that Sound House has adopted the slogan “Empower Japan with Music”, we must take action. This probably means, first and foremost, we must treasure children who are the future of Japan and do our utmost to give them a dream and a future through music. Without the happiness of children, Japan cannot maintain its vitality. It’s obvious that without the smiles of children, the power of music is meaningless. Therefore, we must take a surgical knife of reform and cut into the reality at the risk of cutting ourselves so we can make a lasting change in society, and lately I have been carefully thinking about how we can achieve this through trial and error. I realized that we have so much more to learn about the social environment in which we are supposed to be raising our children.

This is why I am proposing for our employees to spend some time with children at the nursery school in Ishinomaki on weekends, and we have already begun implementing this outreach project. This is what I call true employee training. This is the result of our belief that our employees need the power of children to free themselves from daily concerns and to stay human. Therefore, we want our employees to cherish the time that they spend with the children. I have no idea how long that will last, but the important thing is that we set out to do what we can now to the best of our ability. We want to cherish life and hold onto the bonds that we make always and forever. It doesn’t matter whether this community outreach project will end as a fleeting dream or it will eventually change society. Society is now at a major turning point. Make dreams into reality! This is now my dream. However, I can’t just keep dreaming forever.