What is IVY?

IVY’s establishment resulted
from a visit to a Cambodian refugee camp in 1991.

IVY is an authorized nonprofit organization with a head office located in Yamagata City, Yamagata Prefecture in Tohoku (northeast Japan) that was established in December 1991. It’s founding was inspired by a study tour to Khao-I-Dang Holding Center, a Cambodian refugee camp on the Thai-Cambodian border.

IVY has been involved overseas in Cambodia, the Philippines, and East Timor, and has been especially active in reducing poverty in rural areas since 1996 in Cambodia, the country that led to the establishment of the NGO.

In addition to providing support to non-Japanese living in Yamagata Prefecture and Tohoku, particularly women who came to Japan for international marriage and Japanese nationals returning from China, IVY also implements educational workshops for children to promote international understanding and environmental education, such as the Global Children’s Camp.

In addition, as a consulting NGO body for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, since FY2002 IVY has been overseeing activities in the 6 prefectures in Tohoku, fostering the next-generation NGOs and networking among NGOs in the 6 Tohoku prefectures.

In 2010, IVY Youth was created as a youth organization. The knowledge, experience, and personal relationships cultivated to date are being leveraged to carry out support activities aimed at self-sustained recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Since March 2011, IVY, together with several local NPOs, established at IVY Headquarters the Tohoku Disaster Relief NGO Center immediately following the earthquake on March 11^th, 2011. During the emergency phase, we used local human resources and our proximity to the affected area to deliver relief supplies and send volunteers to numerous evacuation shelters and hospitals in Miyagi on a daily basis. The Center also provided and coordinated information for many of the NGOs doing relief work in the area. As of April, we had more than 80 partner organizations and corporations.

In April 2011, IVY launched its “Cash for Work” program, offering much-needed jobs and income to tsunami victims and allowing them to take part in rehabilitation efforts.

IVY was involved in several projects to encourage the recovery of the affected areas, including: supporting 2 childcare centers in Miyagi Prefecture that were destroyed by the tsunami; building the capacity of new grassroots organizations; and operating the childcare center to support Fukushima mothers and children who have evacuated to Yamagata City (Yamagata Prefecture).

Since fall of 2013, IVY started projects in Northern Iraq, Kurdistan Region.

Assistance of education for children from Syria and IDPs of Iraq who have escaped to Kurdistan Religion and winterization have been ongoing.

Since Sep, 2018, we started water & hygiene sector projects at Rohingya refugees camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.

Raising a motto,”dealing with the needs of each moment with a flexibility”, IVY has been playing a role beyond the borders to let individuals and communities be independent.