Using an old house guesthouse as a base, revitalizing a town of vacant houses at the foot of Mount Fuji | HostelSARUYA
Mount Fuji is the guardian of this place. Here in Fujiyoshida City, Yamanashi Prefecture, you can feel the mountain's grandeur, magnificence, subtlety, and ever-changing nature at all times. No matter where you are, when you look up, you can always feel the mountain right before your eyes. At first, it felt like being inside a giant backdrop of Mount Fuji; the mountain was so close and so clear. But once your eyes grew accustomed to such a mountain silhouette, every time you caught a glimpse of the hill not far away, a sense of contentment and reassurance would rise within you.
The water flowing from Mount Fuji down to the town once gave rise to a thriving textile industry. Clean, impurity-free water was an important resource for dyeing and weaving. The "Kai silk" high-grade silk fabric produced here was once a highly acclaimed local specialty. Everyone says that twenty or thirty years ago, this was a town where you could hear the clatter of weaving looms everywhere.—clatter—" everywhere.
[Note 1] Regional Revitalization Cooperation Team: In order to improve the depopulation phenomenon of non-urban areas, including population decline, aging, and shortage of young labor, Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications established in2009the "Guidelines for Promoting the Regional Revitalization Cooperation Team"(Regional Revitalization Cooperation Team Promotion Guidelines), any prefecture, city, town, or village that meets the definition criteria of a "depopulated area" can apply to recruit a "Regional Revitalization Cooperation Team." The "Regional Revitalization Cooperation Team" system is a local government employment system promoted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, with the aim of creating population flow from the capital to the regions. Its purpose is to encourage young people from urban areas to move to rural areas for one to three years of work, assisting various localities in carrying out various regional revitalization tasks as members of the Regional Revitalization Cooperation Team.
The benefits for Regional Revitalization Cooperation Team members include salary subsidies and startup subsidies: an annual income of up to 4 million yen(including200-25010,000 yen in annual salary, plus up to20010,000 yen in activity travel expenses, training, consumables, and other subsidies), and additionally, after a maximum three-year term, if they continue to reside locally and start a business, an additional 1 million yen startup fund.
[Note 2] Fujiyoshida Everyone's Piggy Bank Foundation (Fujiyoshida Minano Chokinbako Zaidan): Proposed by a Keio University team,2013an organization established by Fujiyoshida City in [year], whose main work is to receive donations from citizens or corporations and use them to invest in regional revitalization projects.