KIBOW Foundation | General Incorporated Foundation KIBOW

On the evening of March 14th, three days after the Great East Japan Earthquake, a group of young entrepreneurs and leaders gathered at GLOBIS in Tokyo. Amidst continuing aftershocks and rolling blackouts, and with nuclear reactors exploding in Fukushima, we engaged in earnest debate about what we could do at a time of such national crisis.

The severity of the devastation reported on TV news and on the Twitter was truly shocking.

From there, “Project KIBOW” was launched – KIBOW being a coined word from Japanese “kibou (meaning hope)” and “rainbow”. It was a voluntary-based project aiming to support the earliest possible recovery of the areas seriously affected by the catastrophic events.

Thanks to generous backing from many individuals and organizations, Project KIBOW has been able to develop activities in the following three fields:

1) Bringing hope to people and becoming a hub of network through KIBOW events organized in disaster-hit areas

2) Serving as a bridge between Japan and the world by sending “Emails from Japan”, a regular email update on the progress in reconstruction efforts in Japan

3) Collecting donations totaling over 90 million yen, which are being allocated for reconstruction initiatives.