ADACHI-KU AND PUBLIC RESIDENCES FOR DISABLED CHILDREN
A public residence attached to the Johoku School (Adachi-ku) for physically disabled children accepts 50 children, a year. The residence is fexible enough to accept in various ways children affected with heavy disabilities. The school is next to the Residence and has the characteristic of employing teachers entrusted with the education of the children in close cooperation with a health care unit that provides a feeling of security. Such an environment is a very rich experience for the children that prepare themselves to make a safe start in life. The parents spend 12 years bringing, every day, back and forth the disabled children to school in the midst of unthinkable efforts. On top of that, the daily care at home produces back pain and, since most of them are single parents in tight economic situations feel much relieved by leaving their children in those residences where they are trained to be able to become independent.
In fact, society evaluates highly such schools for the physically disabled that have boarding facilities attached to them and when it comes to regulations for accepting those disable to residences, it is very important to pay attention not only to the difficulties involved in attending school, but also to the serious family issues most of them are bearing. There are many requests to enter those boarding residences and a signature campaign was launched gathering more than 22,000 signatures but on December 19 the petition not to close those residences was rejected by the 3 strong political parties. The fight continues.

The Case of Mrs. Horikawa
Mrs. Horikawa, a young mother with three small children, lost her husband because a disease last year. Her eldest son has cerebral palsy and is a 4th year student at Johoku School for physically disabled children. Although her health is not strong she takes care of her 2 other small children and has to repay a loan left by her husband. On top of that, she has a 92-year-old sick grandmother to attend to. Because up to now she could place her spastic son in the boarding residence attached to Johoku School she is able to survive. In case the Residence is scrapped, she has to look for a different school and place her child in a welfare institution. The official allowances will be lost and she will not be able to keep her son at home and will be forced to move out of her present apartment. She strongly demands to keep the residence at Johoku School for physically disabled children.
When I asked her: "what about other parents that also have children with disabilities? Are they also demanding to keep the Residence?” Her answer was, “of course. Nevertheless, they are all so busy taking care of their disabled children that they cannot campaign for that. I’m the only one freer to move” (!)
Mrs. Horikawa goes to Umeda Catholic Church in Adachi-ku every Sunday with all her family. She brings her eldest son and her grand-mother in wheel chairs.
Tokyo government has provided millions about a month ago to the Central government, under the condition that the Central government backs Tokyo to be the site of the next Olympics after the ones to be held in mainland China. Why is it that there is no money to assist families, like Horikawa’s, with children with disabilities? (edited by ando)