The Moyai Support Centre for Independent Living is a response to the growing issue of poverty and social isolation in Japan, restoring dignity and autonomy to marginalised people. Its new project, Moyai Café, offers an inclusive space for social reconnection and community engagement.
The Moyai Support Centre for Independent Living helps homeless and disadvantaged people to rebuild their lives by facilitating access to decent housing and working towards sustainable solutions to poverty. The organisation works on two key dimensions of precarity: financial deprivation and social isolation. Moyai offers occupational integration counselling, housing assistance projects and community initiatives, and lobbies public and political decision-makers in Japan.
In recent years, loneliness and social isolation have increased, particularly as the population ages and the situations of households become more precarious. A national survey revealed that around 40% of Japanese people suffer from loneliness, and the same proportion from isolation. In response to this situation, Moyai has stepped up its community empowerment initiatives to complement its basic services.
However, its operations remain limited by financial, spatial and human constraints. All the initiatives take place in the same venue on a daily rota system: advice on Tuesdays, coffee roasting club on Wednesdays, housing support on Fridays, food distribution on Saturdays, etc. As a result, Moyai has reached a stage where it is necessary to reassess the nature of its operational base in order to further develop and evolve its activities.
This is the context for the donation from the Audemars Piguet Foundation for Common Good to support the implementation of the "Moyai Café" pilot project: a permanent, accessible and friendly space dedicated to welcoming people, offering advice and fostering community spirit. The aim is to consolidate and expand existing support programmes, while providing isolated people with a setting in which to reconnect socially. The Café’s aim is to welcome current beneficiaries, but also to open up to new audiences. With its inclusive and collaborative approach, Moyai aims to go beyond the traditional assistance model to encourage mutual commitment and solidarity.
Ultimately, Moyai Café aims to become a vibrant model of inclusion, strengthening collective understanding of the issues surrounding isolation and promoting cross-sector collaboration.
