Ashinaga Issues Emergency Relief Funds of ¥150,000 to All Ashinaga Students

Due to the spread of COVID-19, Ashinaga students have suffered a decrease in income. In order to support Ashinaga Scholarship recipient families who are having trouble with their daily lives, an emergency assistance lump sum of 150,000 yen will be given to each one of the 6,500 scholarship students. Recipients include high school, vocational school, junior college, university, and graduate school students.

Of these, about 5,000 second-year students and above who have already registered in the deposit account will be remitted within April. About 1,500 first-year students who are in the process of registering their deposit account will be remitted as soon as their registration is completed.

For inquiries about this matter, please email us: info@ashinaga.org * The scholarship students will be notified by email.

Heard from Ashinaga student families: “I can’t afford food,” “We’ll have to live on the street”

With the spread of the coronavirus, there has been a huge impact all over Japan. In order to understand the current status of the families who have lost one or both parents, we conducted an online questionnaire.

Of the 281 responses received from all over Japan, we realized how dire this situation had become for many people. Some responses included:

“my income has been cut in half, so I’m unable to pay April tuition,”

“the money I had for food and utilities wasn’t enough, so I had no choice but to live on the street.”

Most Ashinaga scholarships go to students of families that have lost a father. In a high proportion of these families, the mother has a part-time job or is a contract employee, and a reduction of tens of thousands of yen will hurt their livelihood. Even families with the stability of regular employment, many of those people are nurses, medical assistance, nursing home workers, or in the hospitality business, thus have a high risk of COVID-19 infection. Many have spoken up saying, “If I get infected, how will my child live alone? I’ve been anxious at home and at work.”

In response to these concerns, Ashinaga decided on providing a payment of 150,000 JPY to support each student household enrolled in Ashinaga’s scholarship program nationwide.

Help us support the families needing extra support to survive

Ashinaga relies on its annual street fundraising campaign (bokin) as one of its main source of donations. It is held every spring and autumn and receives contributions from all over the country. Due to the impact of COVID-19, the 100th street fundraising campaign scheduled April was cancelled, and there is concern that there will be a significant decrease in Ashinaga financial resources.

Ashinaga decided this emergency lump sum is necessary to overcome the obstacles of the current outbreak. We will continue to give scholarships as normal, but now more than ever, it is necessary to issue expedite additional relief support.

We ask for your continued support as we continue to support as many orphaned students as possible.

If you would like to donate online, please do it through this link.

We also accept inquiries about donations by toll-free phone call.

Toll-free number: 0120-916602