Abstract
In recent years, due to the increasing presence of foreign residents in Japan, issues
surrounding children with connections to foreign countries have become a crucial
challenge to be addressed within local communities. This paper focuses on the city of
Yamato in Kanagawa Prefecture, which has a high concentration of foreign residents.
It examines the actual support provided for foreign children by governmental agencies
and multiple NPOs. The aim is to reassess the support for foreign children by revealing
the outcomes of various activities and identifying remaining challenges.
By examining and analyzing publicly available documents, this study reveals the
aspects and characteristics of support for foreign children by governmental agencies
and NPOs. It also explores the advantages of collaboration between the two. However,
the study also highlights the current insufficient support for foreign mothers with
infants, particularly those in the nursing stage. These findings indicate that previous
support for foreign children, predominantly provided by governmental agencies and
NPOs, has primarily focused on educational assistance for school-age children.
Furthermore, the study suggests that the existing framework of support for foreign
children, which has been built on the accumulation of such systems, lacks adequate
assistance for foreign mothers with infants, especially those in need of support before
reaching school age. This underscores the deficiency in addressing the needs of foreign
mothers and implies a lack of support for mothers with infants within the current
structures of support for foreign children.
