Southeast Missouri State University Japanese students start drive to raise money for homeland

Yuhei Hikasa was 7 when the magnitude-7.2 earthquake rocked Kobe, Japan, pulverizing the ancient port city about 300 miles west of Tokyo.

Hikasa lived in the metropolis of Osaka, about 20 miles from the heart of the 1995 trembler that brought Kobe to its knees, killing more than 5,000 people and leveling tens of thousands of buildings.

Hikasa was helpless.

"I couldn't do anything with it at that time," said the 23-year-old senior at Southeast Missouri State University.

When the magnitude-9.0 earthquake, the long-feared "big one," struck northeast Japan on March 11, followed by a 23-foot tsunami, Hikasa felt helpless again. Like his 55 fellow Southeast students from Japan, he could only watch all the destruction play out on TV.

"I saw the tsunami coming from the ocean and I said, 'Oh, my God,'" he said. "I can't do anything but pray and hope the people are OK."

But Hikasa said he couldn't idly sit back while his homeland struggled from the rubble of one of the worst series of disasters in its history -- catastrophes that, as of Tuesday had claimed more than 9,000 lives with a final death toll projected to more than double that figure.

Hikasa is helping to lead a donation drive to help the victims.

Under the slogan "Pray for Japan: We Need Your Help," Southeast's Japanese students will be accepting donations from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. through Thursday, and again March 28-30, on the third floor of the University Center at Southeast. On Friday, donations will be accepted outside Room 207 of the University Center.

"They felt like they had to do something. This was their country and they were in trouble -- they had to do something," said Lyman Pitman, director of the Missouri Office of the Japan-America Academic Center.

The students approached Pitman a couple of days after the natural disasters, looking for some way to help.

"They were saying they felt this great sense of frustration because it wasn't practical for them to go home, but they still wanted to do something," he said. "They had this energy and they wanted to do something with this energy. Collecting money was something they could do."

The student fund drive began Monday, and Hikasa said as of Tuesday morning it had raised $400, money that will go to the Red Cross relief fund for Japan.

Southeast is home to 56 students from Japan. All students report that their families and friends survived the natural disasters, Pitman said.

For more information on the donation campaign, contact Hikasa at 579-8197 or yhikasa5s@semo.edu or Lyman Pitman at 986-6731.

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