E. Katayama & Co. (headquartered in Nishi Ward, Osaka, President Takashi Katayama) is a distributor of such products as color coated sheets and wire rod products. The company donated 4,000 corrugated metal sheets (about 20 tons) as disaster relief for the Visayas in the Philippines, which was hit by a large typhoon in mid-December of last year. The company supplied color coated sheets to be used for roofing of buildings and for other purposes for victims who lost their homes due to such causes as flooding and landslides. In cooperation with the NPO ‘Japan Platform’, the company transported the materials by sea with the support of Nippon Yusen.
With regards to the typhoon that hit the Philippines, the company has already donated 300,000 yen in January of this year. The aforementioned disaster relief was meant for the full-scale rebuilding of houses, and also was the first time E. Katayama & Co. provided material assistance on its own. From around May the company began cooperating with their sales offices in Japan and gathered the corrugated metal sheets during June. They had to gather the materials while facing disruptions in supply chains and shortages of transport ships due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The corrugated metal sheets arrived in the Philippines in early July. During the previous month 4 local NPOs sent photos to the company showing the donated corrugated metal sheets being transported to various locations in the Philippines and being used for construction work. An employee of the company in charge of the relief effort commented “Seeing the photos showing the sheets being used by the local people and seeing that our efforts have been able to help those people gave us a sense of accomplishment. As a company in the building material industry, we are delighted that we were able to make contributions through building materials.”
Ever since the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, the company has actively been providing support for recovery efforts from natural disasters that occurred both inside and outside Japan. The company has engaged in numerous activities with an aim to contribute to society. For instance in response to the heavy rainfall experienced by western Japan in 2021, the company donated power storage systems with built-in lithium-ion batteries to Kurashiki, Okayama, and after the 2018 Hualien earthquake, they donated 1 million yen to Taiwan. The company plans to continue to aid various locations/countries ravaged by natural disasters and support their reconstruction efforts so that they can recover as soon as possible.
