​​​​​Meeting 1 - March 2016 in Miyakoji "The situation in Miyakoji today"​

Located between 20 and 30 km west of the Fukushima Daicchi nuclear power plant, the village was evacuated at the time of the accident. In the course of 2013, the authorities lifted the evacuation order, but the situation remained very difficult and only a few residents returned. In 2016, the problems reported by residents mainly concerned the difficulties encountered by young families. Discussions also focused on the process that led to the decision to lift the evacuation order, and in particular the role played by individual dose measurements with the “D Shuttle” dosimeter.

Meeting 2 - July 2016 in Iitate "Sharing experiences in the village of Iitate today"​​

Three years after the July 2013 dialogues dedicated to this village, and while the evacuation order was still in effect there, the objective of the meeting was for the residents to discuss the situation in the village five years after the accident and share their plans for the future.

This meeting made it possible in particular to highlight various experiences carried out locally in terms of soil decontamination, the use of local natural resources (construction wood), or the monitoring of the potential impact on the quality of the village water of the burial of decontamination waste. The constraints linked to the continuation or resumption of economic activity were also discussed, including the specific case of a retirement home authorized to continue operating despite the evacuation order of May 2011, and the difficulty of maintaining cultivated land for the next 5-10 years in a place where it is impossible to make a living by resuming farming.​ ​

Meeting 3 - October 2016, Kawauchi "Restoration of living conditions in the ​​Futaba region"

This third meeting shed light on the diversity of situations in this region where the lifting of the evacuation orders was spread over time. At the time of the dialogue, some residents had already returned. Among the rest, some had made their choice whether or not to return, while others were still looking for the best decision for themselves and their families.

The challenges to be addressed to consider returning home ​​were numerous:

Meeting 4 - March 2​​017, Futaba and Ohkuma "Current situation of inhabitants near intermediate storage facilities and surrounding areas"

Mostly located in a "difficult to return zone," Futaba and Ohkuma, two villages near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, were still subject to access restrictions when this meeting took place. Six years after the disaster, they were still faced with a very delicate situation, unknown to the general public.

Discussions focused on the psychological impact of the triple disaster (earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident) and the evacuation that followed. Participants showed a strong attachment to their hometowns, this dialogue giving them the opportunity to be heard, to express their concerns and to provide a platform for a more in-depth discussion on the type of future they wanted.​

Meeting ​5 - July 2017​, Date City “What do we need for our future?"

At the time of this meeting, the evacuation orders had been lifted everywhere for several months except in the "difficult to return zones". Inhabitants of the Fukushima prefecture had regained their freedom of residence, but the social and psychological effects of the long evacuation periods were still very significant. For the “difficult to return zones”, where the prospect of lifting evacuation orders was unclear, the situation was even more delicate​​.

The local participants particularly spoke about the complexity of the rehabilitation process and the diversity of the situations in the different places where they lived. In these conditions, sharing a common vision of the future was not easy. During the meeting, the audience was able to benefit from the strong testimony of a person from a Belarusian village located in the forbidden zone of 30 km around Chernobyl. She recounted her experience of evacuating her village with her family 10 days after the accident and then her involvement in the evacuation of live farm animals from the 30 km zone. Having become a dosimetrist in the collective farming village adjacent to the prohibited zone, she participated in the CORE program to measure the contamination of foodstuffs produced by private production. She also worked with the local population to improve the protection of young children against the risks of internal contamination.

Meeting 6 - November 2​​​​​017, Yamakiya "Dialogue with the inhabitants of Yamakiya"

The sixth Dialogue took place in November 2017 with residents of Yamakiya village, where the evacuation order had been lifted on March 31, 2017 but where many challenges remained:

Meeting 7 - February 2018, Minami-soma City "Current situations and futu​​​re of the Odaka region"

This seventh Dialogue was held in February 2018 in Minami-soma, as a follow-up to the one held at the same place in May 2014. Discussions focused on the remaining challenges after the lifting in July 2016 of the evacuation order from the Odaka area and part of Minami-soma, allowing most of the residents to return to their homes.

A series of testimonies presented the efforts made for the decontamination of the affected areas and for the collection of debris from the tsunami. Participants noted the slow progress in rebuilding infrastructure, reorganizing the school (reopened in April 2017) and efforts to build a robotics industry in the region.

Residents spoke of their life in temporary houses with limited space, their disrupted family life and the feeling of exclusion from the communities where they stayed during the evacuation period, before their return to Odaka where the social structure and activities daily life had been radically changed after five years of evacuation. They expressed concern about the rebuilding of the local community, especially the lack of young people, and the support needed to provide care for the elderly.​

Participants also expressed their concerns about the degradation of their familiar landscapes. They stressed the importance for them of preserving the memory and traditions of their community, for example festivals. Finally, they mentioned that this period of recovery pushed them to identify what was crucial for them in order to preserve the potential of a sustainable future for future generations.​

Meeting 8 - December 2018, Iwaki "After the Fukushima nuclear a​​ccident: preserving memory, sharing experience and moving towards the future"

The eighth Dialogue was held in Iwaki in December 2018. The theme was chosen against a background of memory of events gradually fading and fears of those affected of being abandoned.​

A wide variety of testimonies, points of view and stories were presented, reflecting various actions carried out by affected people from different places in Japan and also Belarus. Participants emphasized the value of sharing emotions, facts (including human and scientific data as well as data relating to local, regional or national events) and points of view, to show reality in a wide variety of situations, corresponding experiences and lessons learned.

Important points to be addressed and possible future actions were identified, with the objective of strengthening the sharing and transmission of the accident experience to the present generation and to future generations, in particular:

the fact that the situation ev​​​​olves over tim​e;the need for mutual understanding to avoid disinformation and false rumors, as well as to reconnect people and rebuild the relationship, including within families;the education of the young generation who should be able to speak with confidence about the accident;the preservation of memory both at the individual and community level;the creation of a museum similar to that of Braguin in Belarus;the importance of "passers" for the preservation of memory and its transfer to different communities and generations.