A novel cafe based mostly in Uehonmachi Metropolis, Osaka grew to become a social media hit and has been attracting loads of consideration, particularly amongst younger folks.
Situated close to the Uehommachi Station, Osaka, Kumanote Cafe (くまの手カフェ (Bear Paw Cafe) was opened in September 2021 to offer a supportive working atmosphere for folks affected by varied psychological well being situations.
It’s run by Psychological Assist, an academy that has been offering psychological well being assist and counseling to struggling people for 12 years. Jobs on the cafe provide a low-stress working atmosphere and assist these making an attempt to reintegrate into society.
Distinctive Idea
The cafe is a room with solely two openings in a concrete wall, one on the left for making orders and funds, and the opposite on the appropriate for receiving.
When your order is prepared, it’s served by an enormous cuddly bear sticking its hand by means of the wall. A wide range of drinks and aesthetically pleasing parfaits can be found, all delivered through a bear paw by means of the opening.
Along with being a enjoyable, whimsical technique to get your morning espresso, the enterprise mannequin additionally addresses numerous social points.
Since face-to-face contact is a stress set off for a lot of of their purchasers, Psychological Well being determined to open a café the place workers doesn’t must see or be seen by prospects.
Employees members use fluffy bear gloves handy out drinks and sweets by means of the small opening within the wall, which solves the issue of skin-to-skin contact, making it a real introvert’s paradise.
Six workers members are listed on the cafe’s web site. One has been identified with despair for 5 years and is underneath rehabilitation. Two others endure from hypersensitivity. One other experiences adjustment issues, whereas a special colleague withdraws. The final workers member is a mom whose son has a studying incapacity and whose daughter has a character dysfunction.
The cafe is now taking in additional part-time workers who equally battle with their psychological well being in order to help them in incomes a livelihood and of their restoration.
The college’s graduates typically function counselors and supply help for the scholars. Typically, part-time employment lasts round six months. In the meantime, greater than 20 individuals are presently on a ready listing for a job opening.
Their Imaginative and prescient
The last word objective of the cafe is to show the staff, who’re additionally sufferers, to be self-sustaining and deal with their very own psychological well being wants by utilizing the alternatives to hone their expertise out there by means of college and store work.
In a chat to the media, the founder, Yuichiro Hiramura, who runs the psychological well being and counseling college, famous that a lot of his college students felt remoted in the course of the pandemic. They’d hassle discovering jobs that supplied sufficient help for his or her psychological well being and didn’t demand shut contact, he defined.
Psychological Well being Points In Japan
The Japanese authorities developed office tips for psychological well being in 2000.
The federal government has been selling measures reminiscent of necessary stress checks, however surveys have proven that smaller institutions are lagging behind of their efforts.
Throughout a survey carried out by the Ministry of Well being, Labor, and Welfare in 2020, 54.2% of workers reported extreme stress and nervousness at work, and 9.2% of companies reported that some workers took a month or extra off as a result of psychological well being points.
The research reveals that psychological sickness is now not uncommon in Japan, as greater than 10% of the inhabitants suffers from despair in some unspecified time in the future throughout their lifetimes.
The continued pandemic seems to have affected folks’s psychological well being as effectively.
Japan Productiveness Heart (Tokyo) researchers carried out a survey from July to September 2021 that concerned human useful resource managers of 144 firms nationwide. They found that about 40% of these firms had reported that Coronavirus negatively affected worker psychological well being.
Based on a consultant of the Japan Productivity Center, whereas on-line work and distant work are rational and environment friendly, they make it tough to learn facial expressions and modifications in folks’s reactions.
He stated a discount in real-time communication may result in worker isolation, so folks ought to take off their masks when speaking on-line and take time to chit-chat in conferences.
A research carried out by the Group for Financial Cooperation and Improvement (OECD) discovered that despair charges in Japan have greater than doubled because the pandemic unfold. Western nations have additionally skilled a two-to-three-fold improve because the pandemic, and the OECD is urging simpler prevention strategies.
In case you are on the lookout for assist with despair or different psychological well being points, TELL Lifeline 03-5774-0992 (English Assist)- Melancholy is an actual well being situation that may be handled and It’s all the time OK to ask for assist.
Creator: Shaun Fernando
