Due to the recent coronavirus outbreak, many schools and after school programs around NIG were suddenly closed. Consequently, the NIG Gender Equality Office provided temporary childcare at NIG. We greatly appreciate the contribution by Yamatani-san, a member of the Office, who had devoted extra hours for arranging the childcare.

Temporary childcares had been provided at the NIG multi-purpose nursery room during the following periods.

・ Feb~early March in response to the country-wide school closures → used by 4 employees

・ late March~ early April spring vacation period → used by 8 employees

・ April 7th ~ April 17th school closures in the state of emergency → used by 16 employees

Although the school closure continued even after this period, we were concerned about the risk of coronavirus infection and terminated the childcare service on April 17th. The babysitter cost was funded by donations from volunteer sponsors as usual, plus partly supported by special expenditures against coronavirus.

We also appreciate many feedbacks that returned to our survey site about coronavirus. These feedbacks helped NIG to take swift measures such as allowance of special leaves or shifting to telework. The approval of telework is a big step forward, since the Office had been acting so hard to introduce this working style at NIG.

The difficult time may continue for some time. We hope that you are staying healthy and safe, and send us any requests, inquiries or opinions, to danjo-nig@nig.ac.jp.