From healing psychological wounds to helping local economies, NGOs are playing a key role in Japan's recovery. "I MET A MAN IN AN EVACUATION CENTER in Fukushima City. He had come from the 20-kilometer exclusion zone around the nuclear power plant with his granddaughter and was under incredible stress," recalls John Sparrow, Asia Pacific spokesperson for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. "He was worried about his wife, who was missing and probably dead; about his house, which was no longer there; his land, which was contaminated with radiation and saline deposits; and his granddaughter, who had to find a new school and risked discrimination when her new classmates discovered where she came from. Tasked him if he was worried about radioactive leaks. 'Oh, that,' he said, and looked at me with a puzzled expression."
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