Shiiba Village
Tomomi Amano

“I want my 3-year-old child to grow up like Shiiba children.” Tomomi Amano speaks in slow, measured words without losing her smile. Although she makes a gentle and meek impression, in her mind, masculine determination to live in this village can be felt.

I want to give back to the kindness that I received with “what I can do because it is me.”

In April 2017, she moved with her family and started working as a person responsible for the project who consider how to use idle facilities in the village. One of the projects was the utilization of the former nursing home site. The vast site is a valuable resource for Shiiba village, where there are few flat lands. That's why she proposed, “I want make it to be a place like a hangout where many people can interact.” The village mayor agreed with this idea, the creation of a new hub facility for exchange began because of Amano's proposal.
Amano has strong feelings for Shiiba. That can actually be felt by the effort to create a related population that has been done independently to increase the number of people involved in Shiiba. Through SNS, she was connected to people outside the village who were interested in Shiiba village, in 2018, 25 young people visited the village counting on Amano. It is said that new people came to move in to the village after that. “The villagers give up that the children who have gone out not return to the village. I want the villagers to see that young people really has been coming to Shiiba with interest and want them get hopes. People can't do anything if being defeated in spirit.”
That thought expressed in new actions. “I want to create a new job in the village and increase the number of people move in to the village,” she opened up a business in July 2019 and established “UI Cast LLC”. "I'm accepted by the villagers, furthermore, I always get everything from rice and vegetables. But I ’m sorry that I don’t have anything I can do in return. So, I take out the frustration through my job and just want to give back to them with what I can do because it is me.”

Interviewed in October, 2019
Writer : Atsumi Nakazato / Photographer : Hiroyuki Tamura