ASEAN chief to join volunteers to comfort Japanese quake victims

TOKYO, May 26 Kyodo - The chief of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations will visit the city of Ishinomaki on June 4 with ASEAN volunteer workers and performers seeking to comfort and entertain people affected by the March 11 mega quake and tsunami, Japanese co-organizers of the event said Thursday.
ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan will lead ''the ASEAN Caravan of Goodwill,'' consisting of about 70 people, to the disaster-ravaged city on the Pacific coast.
The participants include Indonesian and Thai survivors of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, according to the Nippon Foundation, which is making arrangements for the ASEAN project.
Together with about 30 Japanese volunteer workers, the caravan members will help clean up an evacuation shelter covered with mud in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture. They will also cook Thai curry and noodles as well as ''satay'' skewered meat eaten widely in ASEAN countries and serve the food to local residents who have been impacted by the disasters.
In addition to students and citizens from ASEAN countries volunteering to help quake victims, singers and dancers from Indonesia and the Philippines will perform for Japanese survivors, the Nippon Foundation said.
Surin said of the caravan in a press release issued by Jakarta-based ASEAN Secretariat Wednesday, ''We just want to show our friendship with a little of our culture and experience.''
He said participants just wanted ''to be there in person, share personal experiences and spend quality time with the survivors and friends as fellow Asians, as fellow humans.''
ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.