Yoshino Town
Miho Hashimoto

Miho moved into Yoshino-cho three years ago as a staff of Community-Reactivating Cooperator Squad. She has been nurtured children's dream, creativity, and love for their home district through “the moku-iku (roughly means education though woods)”. She has been proposing how to utilize Yoshino lumber in conjunction with education even after completing her term.

I’d like to nurture creativity and dream of children through Yoshino wood.

She liked drawing and craft work since her childhood and studied visual design in high school and university. She says, “Partly due to the influence from my brother who was a teacher, I was also interested in education of children”, and gained the qualification of a teacher. After graduation she got a job as a salesperson at a company of selling imported toys. “Explanations are also needed for Japanese children to play with foreign-made toys due to the cultural differences. I began to think why there is no domestically produced good toys in Japan even though parents want to give their children something good.” Then, she left the company to make toys that are suitable for Japanese children by using Japanese wood. She went to a vocational training school in Nara to study furniture and woodworking skills for a year after that.
While she established Wooden Toy Brand “esora” and worked as a wood craft artist, she moved into Yoshino-cho as a staff of Community-Reactivating Cooperator Squad. She was also supported by the fact that her senior from the training school had been in the team first in Yoshino-cho. “That is also the year when Yoshino-cho made Wood Start Declaration and it was time to promote as “Wood Town Yoshino” from now on while publicizing Yoshino lumber as a whole town". By the way, Yoshino-cho declared the Declaration for Starting with Wood first in Nara and it works on “arranging nurturing and environment evolve with wood at the core, and a living feeling the warmth of trees from children to adults.” In the local government that made this declaration, when a baby is born, a toy “First Toy” using local wood is given.
Even in forestry, which has supported the town's economy for over 500 years, the number of establishments has also been reduced to one-third compared to the best of times. Miho hopes that this “the moku-iku model” here in Yoshino, which combines “local timber and education”, is utilized even in areas where forestry is thriving throughout the country.

Interviewed in April, 2019
Writer : Hideko Takahashi / Photographer : Hiroyuki Tamura