We are Shimotsukata Furusato Ōentai — a resident-led community organization in the Shimotsukata district of Nichinan City, in the south of Miyazaki Prefecture, on the island of Kyushu.
Our district is home to around 71 households and 139 people, set among terraced fields and forested hills. Like much of rural Japan, we face an ageing and shrinking population. But rather than wait for that story to write itself, in 2020 our residents came together to write a different one.
Three pillars
Everything we do rests on three simple commitments — the practical work of keeping a rural community alive.
We look after farmland so it isn't abandoned, we make the most of local resources such as our Nichinan lemons, and we support the everyday life of neighbours — especially older residents — so that living here remains good.
Healthy in body and heart, for 100 years
Our guiding wish is easy to say and hard to earn: that the people of this place stay well — in body and in heart — for a hundred years, and that the village is passed on full of smiles to the generations after us.
An official rural project
Our activities are carried out as part of Japan's national Rural RMO (Regional Management Organization) program, supported by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. In plain terms: we are a recognized model for how small communities can manage their own land, resources and care — and we hope to be an example other regions can learn from.