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charity (Page 3)

X Japan’s Yoshiki donates 10 million yen to disaster relief after western Japan’s torrential rain

One more step in the musician and band’s mission to help children in pain.

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Victim of 3.11 to people who have never suffered a disaster: Don’t send origami cranes to shelters

What many may think is well-intentioned well-wishing may not actually be all that well-received by victims of natural disasters.

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How much is otaku blood worth? Enough to get a free anime clear file if you donate it in Japan

Fans’ love of Love Live! can save lives, earn them an exclusive illustration of idols in blood-red costumes.

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Gyoza restaurant in Kyoto helping struggling students with free food for decades

Gyoza No Ohsho franchise’s bottomless generosity runs on the simple principle that young people need to eat.

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Eating a rice ball? You could feed five hungry kids just by sharing a photo for charity campaign

Onigiri Action World Food Day campaign is donating meals to children in Africa and Asia for every rice ball photo shared online with its hashtag.

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Perhaps the most expensive character bento ever has been sold for a fantastic cause

We’re talking about thousands of dollars here!

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Two of Japan’s biggest chains travel to disaster-stricken Kumamoto to hand out free beef bowls

Mobile kitchens provide comfort food, in the truest sense of the word, for thousands of earthquake victims.

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Japanese adult satellite network ERO24TV is currently donating money to an AIDS awareness charity based on how long you can keep your eyes closed in front of your monitor—they’re not going to make it easy though!

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Meet the people and organizations who are tackling the problem of childhood hunger in Japan

Tough economic times can and do happen everywhere in the world. Even in wealthy, developed countries like Japan, some folks struggle every day to make ends meet. Sometimes, those people are families with young children.

Childhood hunger is a worldwide problem, and while no one deserves to go hungry, it is an especially sad situation for children. For one thing, they can’t really do anything to help better their situation, and secondly, they need the food and nutrition to help their bodies continue to grow properly. In Japan, approximately 16 percent of two-parent families are financially unable to provide enough food for their children, and that number jumps to 32 percent for single-parent households, according to a 2012 survey. But there are some who refuse to stand by doing nothing and are dedicating themselves to feeding the hungry children in Japan.

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Get a soda and good karma with this donation-accepting vending machine

One thing foreign visitors to Japan immediately notice is the ubiquitous vending machines. Particularly in big cities, you can’t swing a tanuki without hitting a machine selling something. Mostly it’s soft drinks, but there are also vending machines for beer, cigarettes, hamburgers, used panties, weird toys, curry, fresh eggs, and pretty much anything under the sun. Now you can even get a good deed done with your canned coffee purchase at this vending machine accepting charitable donations.

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Don’t forget: Yahoo! Japan to make disaster relief donation for every person who searches for “3.11” today

Four years on, the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis that befell Japan’s Tohoku region on March 11, 2011 have very little effect on the day-to-day lives of most people in the country. The rolling blackouts have stopped. Batteries and bottled water are once again readily available. Trains are running, and whole cities aren’t spending hours walking home from work or school.

But while a return to normalcy is a desirable, and ultimately necessary, part of recovery, it’s also important to remember what happened. To stem the forgetfulness that often accompanies the later stages of coping with tragedy, on March 11 Yahoo! Japan will be making a donation to the Tohoku recovery efforts for every person that searches for “3.11” through the company’s search engine.

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Proceeds from gourmet New Year’s meals to be donated to help feed undernourished children

As a nation of die-hard foodies, Japan is always on the lookout for a memorable meal. We’re just a couple of months away from New Year’s, when Japan dines on some of its most opulent dishes of all as part of the multi-dish osechi meals that are traditionally eaten at the beginning of the year.

Recently, more and more families have begun purchasing their osechi rather than making their own, and we imagine quite a few have been tempted by the Mickey Mouse and Frozen versions we talked about last month. If you’re willing to hold off on satisfying your inner child for the sake of the world’s less fortunate actual kids, though, you might be interested in an osechi set that helps raise funds for charity group Table for Two.

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Hiroshima begins recovery projects following tragic, deadly landslides

In the early hours of the morning on August 20, Hiroshima City was hit by severe thunderstorms. As the downpour continued, the ground gave way in the Asanami and Asakita Wards, triggering landslides that have caused the deaths of dozens of residents.

With the storm finally passed and clean-up projects beginning, we visited the disaster site where we saw just how long the road to recovery is going to be.

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“Pirates” challenge Asian leaders to ALS Ice Bucket Challenge; Monkey D Luffy not invited

As of August 25, 2014, the ALS Ice Bucket Donations have reached a whopping US$70.2 million. The challenge has made it across the globe, with participants ranging from Benedict Cumberbatch to Kumamon. While the challenge is raising awareness of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), new participants are finding their own ways to make the challenge more interesting.

One Korean-American rock band has challenged the leaders of three Asian countries to pick up that bucket and do their part to raise awareness and money for the neurodegenerative disease.

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Following on from this post, we thought it might be appropriate to share some opposing opinions to the ice bucket challenge, which is still going strong and getting more column inches (not to mention YouTube minutes) than anyone could have ever dreamed.

The craze recently found its stride in Asia with an ongoing chain of Japanese business folk, as well as tycoons and celebrities across China. However, one Taiwanese sufferer of the ALS had some criticisms to voice.

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Tohoku aid charity Knit For Japan attempts world record blanket

More than three years on from the Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, there are still roughly 260,000 people living in temporary housing facilities. Since Tohoku gets mighty cold in the winter, sending these evacuees some lovely hand-made afghans is a woolly hug that lets them know they are not forgotten.

But that didn’t go far enough for Yokohama-based knitting teacher Bernd Kestler, who wanted to send them the biggest blanket the world has ever seen!

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Japanese CEOs take on the ice bucket challenge

The ice bucket challenge has gone viral this summer with everyone from your average Joe to celebrities and business moguls such as Oprah, Charlie Sheen, and Bill Gates getting on board. Now it’s even spread across the pond to Japan, and started circulating among the business bigwigs over here. Yesterday Toyota President Akio Toyoda took on the challenge with a brave face, while also keeping the charitable spirit alive.

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London’s Sumo Run has Japanese confused, kind of offended

This week the annual charity event known as the Sumo Run took place in London’s Battersea Park. To raise money for education in sub-Saharan Africa, participants don inflatable sumo suits and run the 5km course around the park, no doubt delighting passersby in the country that gave us Monty Python.

But when media outlets in Japan reported on the event, the audience here was not universally pleased, with some people calling it racist cultural appropriation.

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China’s most pompous millionaire just threw a ridiculously fancy lunch for homeless New Yorkers

Multimillionaire Chen Guangbiao, the self-proclaimed “most influential person of China,” held a massive event in New York City on Wednesday during which he handed out $100 bills to 200 homeless people at the Loeb Boathouse in Central Park.

“He’s the man! He’s the man!” one man shouted, throwing his arm around Guangbiao and waving the three $100 bills in the air.

“I wish and hope that you will put the money into good use,” Guangbiao said in remarks delivered through a translator.

“I hope that you will use this money as seed money for whatever job training or job education you will receive so that you can help yourself,” he said.

Guangbiao, 46, then told the crowd that he would like to do this every year. They began to cheer and whistle.

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  • Jun 15, 2014

Sweet Charity indeed! Hello Kitty teams up with world-renowned patissier for a worthy cause

They say charity is sweet, but we’re pretty sure it doesn’t come much sweeter than this. Yes, it’s a charity project that involves an internationally renowned patissier, as well as the most famous mascot cat in the world, and it’s called “Macaron Day“. Even the name sounds sweet, doesn’t it?

As the name suggests, the charity features the delectable macarons created by master pastry chef  Pierre Hermé, but it’s also about raising money for children fighting serious diseases. And this year, our beloved Hello Kitty will be pitching in to help with the project — by becoming the PR ambassador for Macaron Day in Japan! Now, we know we’ve often described Hello Kitty as a hardcore entrepreneur who isn’t at all picky about the jobs she takes on, but this time, she’s all about seriously contributing to a good cause. But what kind of event is this Macaron Day, and how exactly did Hello Kitty become involved in it?

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